Den Vignettes

Just when I was thinking that this year's batch of high-profile April Fools Day jokes were so stupid that they weren't even jokes, I get hard evidence that at least one of them worked: I actually had a 20-something person come into the store Friday afternoon and ask me for the "new Nine Inch Nails album," which, if none of you have heard about it, can be looked at here.

I almost felt bad setting the poor bastard straight: not because I'm sure he didn't actually see the above webpage (he told me that a friend of his e-mailed him about this "release," and I wonder if his friend bothered to read anything past the title), but because he mentioned that he had been to like five other stores around the county looking for it and my explanation at least made clear why he'd had so much trouble locating it. Oof.

In the department of "non-April Fools Day related inanity", I can tell you about the two teenagers who asked Greg if we carried any Metallica "vinyls" in the store. I used the quotes there because they pronounced the word "VIN-yulz," which for a moment had him completely baffled as to what the hell they were talking about. Dear lord ...

An Open Letter To An Apparently Growing Subsect Of The American Population

DEAR ARMED-AND-SUICIDAL PEOPLE OF AMERICA:

IF YOU HAPPEN TO FEEL THAT TAKING YOUR OWN LIFE VIA. THE USE OF FIREARMS IS THE ONLY RECOURSE FOR YOU IN THE WAKE OF YOUR LOST JOB/STOCK OPTIONS/CAR/GIRLFRIEND/WIFE/POKER GAME, THEN YOU ARE CERTAINLY FREE TO DO SO, BUT FOR CRISSAKES STOP ASSUMING EVERYONE ELSE FEELS EXACTLY THE SAME WAY YOU DO.

THANK YOU AND GOOD DAY,

vbc3

"Boo!"s And "Woo!"s

Yeah yeah, I've been a quiet, streaky blogger so far this year. Guilty as charged. I've been having a difficult time getting myself into a regular writing mindset for a while now, largely due to free-time issues (like, not having very much of it). That said, I am matching my 2008 output to date, so maybe it's a seasonal thing. Who knows, maybe I need to look into this Twitter thing.

Just kidding.

"BOO!"s

* Even though the exhaust system is brand new and the car had been running better than it had in a while over the last few weeks, I'd been having a bad feeling about how this year's E-check was gonna go, so I made sure to get it out of the way extra early for a change. That was probably one of my better ideas: not only did the Beretta fail, it completely BOMBED the test. From the near-hysterial reaction of the lady at the testing facility, it seems that my hydrocarbon exhaust level is about, uh, four times over the normal limit, suggesting that I am not far off from blowing unburned fuel right through my tailpipe. Even better, my CO levels are nearly twenty times where they should be. This is no longer a Chevy Beretta, people, I am now driving the fuckin' Deathmobile. I take a grain of comfort in knowing that my friend Andy will be so proud of my size 30 carbon footprint that he might give me a plaque or something.

Needless to say, the limit has finally been reached and the Deathmobile is now on its farewell NE Ohio tour, as I have about 4 months until the current tags expire. Said tags will not be renewed, nor will the Deathmobile be repaired again. Believe me you, I'm a bit incensed that I blew that last grand on it getting the power steering and exhaust systems fixed in December and January, but we (ultimately) live and learn. The question now becomes what do I do about transportation after the end of July? As of right now, I'm leaning strongly towards "new (used) car," and away from "take over Sarah's car and assume remaining payments."

Assuming I go with the former option, I'm going to need to step up the Amazon sales on my end a bit, if nothing else, while also increasing my currently-depleted level of savings over the three couple of months to reach a place where I am comfortable parting with a decent-sized down payment and setting up some attendant financing. More details and strategies as they emerge...

* Frustratingly, the obtaining of a permit for our new water heater has stalled completely. We have called the company that installed the goddamned thing twice in an attempt to get some idea of what to do or how to get a permit, and we have not been called back either time. Finally sick of waiting, I contacted the Willowick Health Department in an attempt to go straight to the top, only to be told that someone would be in contact with us. Of course, said someone has yet to call.

* My 2008 income taxes were e-filed earlier tonight. The results are about par for the course: I get a whopping 7 bucks from the state of Ohio (and that is only after declaring the substantial amount of dental work I had done last year), while the Feds soak me for 111. Grrr.

"WOO!"s

* Dad is back at home again and independently mobile, with a voice and demeanor that is slowly strengthening ... though I wonder if it will ever sound anything like it used to.

* Somehow, we followed up a miserable January at Record Den with the best February sales figure we've had since our re-opening in 1998. It looks like March is going to be close, maybe just a shade off target, which is still better than we thought we'd have any right to be considering the way everything in this country has allegedly gone to Hell. We are pleased and delighted with these results, but also wondering if maybe we are finally becoming the only game in town at long last.

* Our friend Dave Lynch was in town last weekend, and to herald his visit, Sarah and despite a water disaster with the worktub that soaked a part of the living room carpet a couple days previous, we managed to get the condo tidied up to an extent it hasn't been since last year. Now the onus is on for us to keep it that way.

* Opening day for the 2009 baseball season is exactly one week away.

* I still have not set up my new PC yet as I have bogged while backing up stuff on this old one. Still, this rates as a "Woo!" because this new baby is going to kick this old one's ass right off the planet. 4 gigs of memory. Need I say more?

Truly "Bigger Than Jesus"

No discussion of popular music in the 1960s (or the 20th Century, for that matter) could be complete without mention of The Beatles, and this week marks the 45th anniversary of what could arguably be considered the very height of Beatlemania.

On Billboard's Hot 100 singles chart for the week ending April 4, 1964, the Fab Four achieved a level of dominance never seen before or since as they staked claim to the Top 5 positions on said chart, while placing an incredible seven other songs ("I Saw Her Standing There," "You Can't Do That," "All My Loving," "Roll Over Beethoven," "From Me To You," "Do You Want To Know A Secret," and "Thank You Girl") at various slots down the list.

Below is a look at that week's Top 10 as it was published:

As you might have noticed, the Beatles singles listed above originated from multiple distributors, not just Capitol Records (the label they had signed to just before the hysteria had started, and their U.S. home ever since). Facing a stone wall of skepticism or outright hostility from the U.S. record industry, band manager Brian Epstein had scattered several Beatles singles among a handful of smaller independent labels over the second half of 1963 in persistent efforts to get a foothold in the U.S. market with no success at all. Then, as now, if you had an insufficient promotional budget to spend fostering radio airplay, your releases simply would not get on the air, and the labels that chose to work with Epstein had little or no national promotion budget to speak of.

Epstein's efforts at the time may have been viewed as a failure, yet they paid off wildly when the band became a known entity in America seemingly overnight. Thus, when "I Want To Hold Your Hand" went supernova in January of 1964 (with five million sold, it ultimately became the best-selling song of the decade), there was plenty of older Beatles product available to record stores who found themselves swamped by overwhelming demand for anything Beatles-related. Such was this demand that even cash-in novelty records recorded in the days and weeks following the band's Ed Sullivan Show appearance began to show up in the record charts as well in the form of "We Love You Beatles" by The Carefrees, "A Letter To The Beatles" by The Four Preps, "My Boyfriend Got A Beatle Haircut" by Donna Lynn and "The Boy With The Beatle Hair" by The Swans.

While managing to nail down the Top 5 slots on the Hot 100 is an impressive enough feat, one has to look beyond this amazing one-week snapshot to see just how stupendous the Beatles were in the first half of 1964. While they released their most epochal works down the line a ways, they would never again completely dominate culture like they did that spring. For starters, that mind-boggling roll call of twelve singles listed simultaneously on the Hot 100 would actually increase to an unbelievable fourteen entries on the April 11 chart as "There's A Place" and "Love Me Do" entered the fray alongside their dozen predecessors.

The April 4 chart may have been the only time the Beatles would control the entire Top 5, but their domination of the Billboard singles chart extends for months either way: on April 4, the band had now owned the entire top 4 for two straight weeks and the entire top 3 for four straight weeks (since March 14). If that wasn't enough of a stranglehold for you, consider next that the Fabs had also reserved the top 2 positions on the Hot 100 from February 22 to April 25 (1o weeks) and held down the number 1 spot with one song or another from February 1 though May 2 (14 weeks).

Oh, it gets better: The Beatles kept at least one song in Billboard's Top 10 from to January 25 to June 20 of that year (22 weeks solid), and managed to keep at least one hit in the national Top 40 for 39 consecutive weeks -- from January 25 (the week "I Want To Hold Your Hand" rocketed from #45 clear up to #3) all the way through to October 17 (the week "Matchbox" tumbled from #17 to #52, opening a nearly two-month period when no Beatles songs impacted the U.S. Top 40 ).

Lastly, and perhaps most incredibly of all, by the end of 1964, the Fab Four would amass 15 million-selling records in the U.S. (over 9 singles and 6 albums), and the total sales of these releases combined amounted to over 25 million records sold ... by one band in one year.

When Pets Attack

It's always fun in a disconcerting way to watch as your rascally, cuddly, lovable furball pet instantaneously transmogrifies into a fuckin' terminator.

Sarah was holding Moe as we talked in the office yesterday afternoon while it rained steadily. Sarah noticed a flutter of motion by the window and spied a pigeon who had just landed on the sill to escape the miserable conditions. She mentioned it to me and then asked Moe if he could see it, lowering him slightly so that it was in his sightline.

At first, he didn't seem to process it, but once he did, it was like this electric current just shot right through him. He immediately did that "turn to jellyfish" trick of his and squirmed out of Sarah's grasp and, in one motion, fell to the floor and then sprang straight for the window (which is about chest-high to me).

BWAP! The window was, of course, closed, and Moe flew face-first right into it. The surprise of this impact knocked him back down to the floor into a tangle of wires, but he barely noticed. In another spring-like motion, he threw himself back at the window. BWAP! Same result. Down to the floor he went again. Duh.

By this time, Sarah and I were pretty much incapacitated with laughter, while the pigeon, who probably watched its life flash before its eyes, took off in a hurry once it realized it was not going to be Moe's dinner.

One can almost imagine the thought processes involved in these few seconds of action:

Moe: purr purr ooo I wuv you guyz so much I just love being fussed over and cuddled and the center of attent-HOLY SHIT A FUCKEN BIRD!!! YOU ARE DEAD, BIRD!! DEAD!!! I AM GOING TO FUCK YOU UP RIGHT NOW!!!

*BWAP!*

Pigeon: AAUGGGHHHHH HALP O GOD O GOD

*BWAP!*

Pigeon: oh. heh. lol. *flies away*

Moe, of course, spent the rest of the afternoon keeping a very watchful eye on the windowsill. I tried to impress upon the boy that even if the window had been opened, and there had been no screen in it, he would have possibly nabbed the Mr. Pigeon in a flying tackle, yes, but then it would have been a 20 foot drop to the sidewalk afterward.

I don't think he cared.

The Wubbulous World Of Dr. Seuss

I think everyone knows by now that Google is always putting up different stylized logos on its homepage to commemorate holidays and special events. This morning, the following logo went up to mark the 105th birthday of Dr. Seuss:

Dunno about you guys, but I think this one is a keeper. :)

Some extra links, should you have the time:

Dr. Seuss's Seussville

Dr. Seuss Went To War: A Catalog Of Political Cartoons

American Art Archives display

Some videos available for streaming:

Green Eggs And Ham

The Lorax

The Zax

The Sneetches (Part 1 and Part 2)

(Youtube): Everything Is Amazing, Nobody Is Happy...

Comedian Louis C.K. sits down with Conan O'Brien and offers up some thought-provoking commentary on modern society with a dose of laughs.

Progress

A checklist of things accomplished and to be accomplished since the beginning of 2009:

* New exhaust system on car (ostensibly to pass this year's E-Check, though also to keep me from inhaling unhealthy amounts of carbon monoxide and keep me from smelling like the interior of an auto repair shop 24/7): check.

* Power steering on car repaired and functioning nominally: check.

* Possibly impulsive and ill-timed purchase of new, very speedy PC from MicroCenter, partially on a $200 gift card I'd received for Christmas: check.

* Heater unit maintenance to clear out a few years of dust buildup: check.

* Completion of re-inspection by Inspector Dickhead: check.

* Cleveland Indians 2009 spring training: in progress.

* Record Den sales status as of end of February 2009: cautiously optimistic following an absolutely awful January.

* Pointless obtaining of permit/plumber inspection for new water heater installed last year (by licensed plumbers, I might add) in order to get the city of Willowick off my back for this year once and for all: pending.

* Next six months of car insurance paid off: pending.

* A couple more dental fillings in April (which, if nothing else, finally closes the book on that ongoing project): pending.

* Dad's status on physical rehabilitation (following a late January bout with pneumonia in his other lung): pending.

* Current pace of Amazon sales: tortoise-like.

* State of condo cleanliness: cluttered.

* Setup/installation of new possibly impulsive and ill-timed purchase of new, very speedy PC from MicroCenter, partially on a $200 gift card I'd received for Christmas: delayed while trying to backup and offload ridiculous amounts of files from this one.

* 2008 income taxes: delayed until I can get needed dividend info from Dad.

* Scheduling of an ultrasound test at LakeWest Hospital (a very cheap and cost-effective procedure, I'm sure) to ascertain that Chuck is no longer hanging around: delayed awaiting the completion of "bill week".

Things are gradually becoming better than they were when I last updated this blog. My overall mood is improving considerably. There is a new U2 album next week. Baseball season starts in just over a month. Best of all: summer's comin'.

NP: (Various Artists) Cafe Del Mar Volume Five

Breather

Hi. Taking an hour break between applying coats of paint to the trapdoor access to the upstairs bathroom (located in the foyer ceiling) and the upper windowsill of the bathroom itself. After seemingly vanishing from existence for a wonderful two months after finding some new stupid shit to bitch about, Inspector Asshole has returned from whatever sabbatical he was on and now wants to schedule a re-inspection, like, yesterday. Good for him.

I think there is some kind of limited zen state I can achieve while painting. I can lose myself in the job and shed irritation with life and just kind of Be for as long as it takes to complete what I'm doing. Granted, dripping paint onto surfaces of different colors kinda hinders the calming effect of the chore a bit, but luckily, we've had none of that tonight.

Maybe I should do this more often. Anyone out there need a room painted by a rank amateur anytime soon?

I'll write some more eventually, but I've been in a pretty bleak place moodwise for the last week or so. Life sucks. It'll pass.

Holiday Season Wrap Up

On both a personal and a business level, Christmas 2008 will not be remembered fondly in the years to come. By the end of December, I was coping with a fair amount of stress, dealing with the nasty after-effects of that week-long godawful flu that had been going around, and worrying about of the future of my occupation more than feeling any kind of measurable Christmas Spirit. Hell, I could barely be arsed to string up any colored lights or mess around with the ol' metal tree ... and the ones I did wind up putting up came down all of two days after the holiday. Bah humbug, etc.

Ironically, this was the first holiday season in years where spending money was not really an issue for me, yet thanks to the collapse of the U.S. economy, it suddenly became a pretty big goddamned deal for everybody else. Thus, gift cards became the gift du jour at the annual Cooke family Christmas get-together, which itself was a strangely somber and empty-feeling occasion since, for the first time ever, my father was not present for it.

Thinking about Dad now, it seems really silly for me to complain about how 2008 basically went into the crapper just as the summer finished winding down, especially since I wasn't the one who spent nearly a quarter of the year (including all of November and December) in a freaking hospital. Dad basically started off last year in pretty iffy shape and seemed only to get worse as the months went by. By Thanksgiving, he had been reduced to a literal shell of himself (roughly 140 pounds, if that) by a series of ongoing health issues that seemed to beget additional problems in a disturbingly domino-like fashion. There are too many involved descriptions and eventualities to get into right now, but the end result of all of it was that my father spent the last two months of the year linked up to a half-dozen tubes, immobilized in a hospital bed, his once-booming voice now wasted away to a wheezy, thin whisper. I remember clearly leaving his hospital room on Thanksgiving Day and seriously wondering if he would ever be coming home.

Thankfully, one of the best parts of Christmas Day was all of us heading up to see him at a rehabilitation facility just outside Chardon and seeing him in markedly improved condition. We had brought along a mini-Christmas Tree, bags full of gifts, and visited with him for a few hours, having in effect a kind of "Christmas away from home." Though still terribly emaciated and dependent on machines for eating and breathing, Dad looked and sounded noticeably stronger and more upbeat than he had on Thanksgiving. For a combination Christmas/"get-well-soon" gift, I had spent nearly all of my free time in December hand-scanning over 1000 family photos to create a chronological "digital photo album" for him, and I was very happy to hear that he was delighted with the end product.

Happily, as I write this, Dad is finally back at home and getting around on his own. We're all hoping that the worst is finally over at last and that he can rehabilitate into a semblance of his old self once again, but time (and his compromised immune system) will tell. A version 2.0 of my photo album will soon be in the works as well: Mom found another 1000 or so pictures a few days after Christmas, and I'll need to sit down with my father sometime soon to sort out some dates, people and places in order to make the new volume a bit more informative and complete.

Business-wise, this holiday season felt like being given a sudden kick in the teeth following months of having one arm held behind our backs. Until about December 16, we were running a tad off pace (which had been the case with us most of the year), but keeping within sight of our sales targets. After that point, however, the bottom just fell out: instead of keeping within 5-10% of our expected sales, we were down by upwards of 30-50%. Ow. Save for a couple of days immediately before and after the holiday, we could have run the entire season with just the three of us ... it was that slow.

I suppose it goes without saying that coming out of a crappy Christmas and entering the year 2009 and the most foreboding economic climate in the last 75 years, we're expecting a pretty brutal January (and after a hopeful start, the sales over the last few days seem to be following our predictions). The prospects for the first quarter as a whole aren't looking a lot better, either, though forthcoming new releases from Bruce Springsteen, Morrissey, Black Keys singer Dan Auerbach and U2 should provide interesting field tests of just how bad things really are.

Ah well, at least 2008 is finally over and out ...

Record Den Top 100 Sellers Of 2008

1. METALLICA Death Magnetic
2. THE BLACK KEYS Attack And Release
3. ARTFUL DODGER Honor Among Thieves
4. COLDPLAY Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends
5. RADIOHEAD In Rainbows
6. DAVID GILMOUR Live In Gdansk
7. THE RACONTEURS Consolers Of The Lonely
8. THE BLACK CROWES Warpaint
9. LED ZEPPELIN Mothership
10. JACK BRUCE & ROBIN TROWER Seven Moons
11. BOB MARLEY & THE WAILERS Legend
12. LIL' WAYNE Tha Carter III
13. TODD RUNDGREN Arena
14. SLIPKNOT All Hope Is Gone
15. FISH The 13th Star
16. JEFF BECK Performing This Week: Ronnie Scott's
17. GENESIS 1970-1975
18. WEEZER Weezer
19. JUDAS PRIEST Nostradamus
20. ALICE COOPER Along Came A Spider
21. STEVE WINWOOD Nine Lives
22. R.E.M. Accelerate
23. AC/DC Black Ice
24. MUDCRUTCH Mudcrutch
25. WHITESNAKE Good To Be Bad
26. NEIL YOUNG Greatest Hits
27. OFFSPRING Rise And Fall, Rage And Grace
28. KID ROCK Rock N Roll Jesus
29. DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE Narrow Stairs
30. PINK FLOYD The Dark Side Of The Moon
31. MOTLEY CRUE Saints Of Los Angeles
32. PITCH BLACK FORECAST Absentee
33. LED ZEPPELIN Led Zeppelin II
34. THE KILLERS Day & Age
35. MICHAEL STANLEY Just Another Night
36. CREEDENCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL Chronicle, Vol. 1
37. DISTURBED Indestructible
38. FOXBORO HOT TUBS Stop Drop And Roll
39. MADONNA Hard Candy
40. TOM PETTY & THE HEARTBREAKERS Greatest Hits
41. T.I. Paper Trail
42. RADIOHEAD The Best Of Radiohead
43. LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM Live At The Bass Performance Hall
44. RUSH Rush
45. THE FIREMAN Electric Arguments
46. RUSH Snakes & Arrows Live
47. RAY DAVIES Working Man's Cafe
48. JOE WALSH The Definitive Collection
49. BUCKCHERRY 15
50. THE WHO Who's Next
51. LED ZEPPELIN Houses Of The Holy
52. LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM Gift Of Screws
53. BECK Modern Guilt
54. PORTISHEAD Third
55. CREAM Disraeli Gears
56. JOE SATRIANI Professor Satchafunkilus
57. BLACK MOUNTAIN In The Future
58. LED ZEPPELIN Physical Graffiti
59. THE BEATLES Abbey Road
60. DENNIS WILSON Pacific Ocean Blue
61. FLEET FOXES Fleet Foxes
62. DOKKEN Lightning Strikes Again
63. TESTAMENT The Formation Of Damnation
64. VAMPIRE WEEKEND Vampire Weekend
65. KANYE WEST 808s & Heartbreak
66. THE CURE 4:13 Dream
67. MY MORNING JACKET Evil Urges
68. BLUE FLOYD Begins
69. DETHKLOK The Dethalbum
70. GUNS 'N ROSES Greatest Hits
71. U2 War
72. OASIS Dig Out Your Soul
73. VARIOUS ARTISTS Big Blue Ball
74. DARK LOTUS Opaque Brotherhood
75. THE ROLLING STONES Shine A Light
76. FLOGGING MOLLY Float
77. PORCUPINE TREE We Lost The Skyline
78. NICK LOWE Jesus Of Cool
79. MICHAEL JACKSON Thriller
80. BLIND FAITH Blind Faith
81. LED ZEPPELIN Led Zeppelin
82. NEIL YOUNG Sugar Mountain: Live At Canterbury House 1968
83. QUEEN & PAUL RODGERS The Cosmos Rocks
84. KINGS OF LEON Only By The Night
85. JENNY LEWIS Acid Tongue
86. OPETH Watershed
87. RINGO STARR Liverpool 8
88. RUSH The Spirit Of Radio
89. JIMI HENDRIX Experience Hendrix: The Best Of Jimi Hendrix
90. LED ZEPPELIN Led Zeppelin III
91. U2 Boy
92. GRAHAM NASH Songs For Beginners
93. THE BEATLES The Beatles
94. THE DOORS The Best Of The Doors
95. R.E.M. Murmur
96. NICKELBACK Dark Horse
97. RYAN ADAMS & THE CARDINALS Cardinology
98. LUCIFER'S FRIEND Lucifer's Friend
99. BOB DYLAN Tell-Tale Signs: The Bootleg Series Vol. 8
100. MOTORHEAD Motorizer

Gradual Relief

I haven't written much about what has been going on in my personal life, since quite frankly things haven't been a party lately with work, my family, a brief return visit from Chuck last Friday, and the never-ending pressure to keep some money set aside for what I hope to be a new used car sometime in the first half of next year. However, one of the bright spots to the last few weeks has been the continuing easing of the prices at the gas pump to a point I actually thought we might not see again. While doing some finances and updating of the bank account tonight, I created a list of my last few visits to the gas pump and the totals accrued each time (and keep in mind that I only get gas when I'm nearing empty and I always get a full tank):

September 17: $58.01 (my highest gas reciept of the year, after 4 months in 54-57 range)
October 1: $51.51
October 14: $44.00
October 28: $36.00
November 14: $28.25
November 24: $26.50

Universal To Charge For Viewing Online Music Video?

While perusing headlines on Billboard.com earlier this morning after a cleaning appointment with my dentist, I came across an interview with Interscope Records chairman Jimmy Iovine earlier, mostly concerning the decisions made to delay some of the label's biggest expected fourth quarter hit albums into 2009 (as if the music industry needed any more woes).

Other topics were briefly touched on as well, including the increasing trend of major labels/acts offering their new releases exclusively to such big boxes as Wal-Mart and Best Buy, and this interesting little nugget:

I've always felt, and this is just in general, that there's an oil well for the record industry in their music videos, and so does Doug Morris. Universal Music Group had 3 billion views on YouTube and we are so underpaid for those videos. Now, we'll set up an infrastructure, and Doug's in charge of this. We'll make a deal where we really see the value. We have the most perfect content for the Internet. People love to watch them and they watch them over and over again. If Saturday Night Live gets 100,000 views on the Internet, they throw a party. Soulja Boy, on his site alone, got 500 million! It's nuts. The Lady GaGa video has 25 million views.

This is all going to be turned back toward the labels. That value has to be achieved.

Sooo help me out, here: does Iovine honestly think Soulja Boy would have had 500 million views if he charged, say, a buck a view for his video clip? How about Lady GaGa? Or how about those 3 billion views for Universal artists on Youtube? Am I over-reacting or is this the absolute nuttiest thing I have heard from the music industry this year?

Jesus, you guys can't even do catalog reissues right anymore without somebody fucking something up and now you want to start charging people to watch promotional videos that were made exclusively to sell your records and mp3s?

Sorry, MTV, looks like your cool new venture might crash before it ever achieves full flight.

Catching Up With Rex

Last night, 60 Minutes did a follow-up report on a blind, disabled kid named Rex Lewis-Clack, who has an absolutely incredible gift for music. I watched this report with the sound off while we were at Outback Steakhouse with my brother and my niece and, my curiosity piqued, decided to hunt it down online this afternoon.

If you haven't seen this segment (and have fifteen minutes to kill), you might it very worth your while. On one level, it's a fascinating (and moving) human story, while on another it raises all kinds of interesting questions regarding the apparent connection between blindness, mental disability, and prodigious musical talent.

I think what I find most fascinating about cases like Rex and Rachel Flowers is that we all have the same minds, more or less, and yet it seems that when "higher" functions are lost (or never gained) in a small group of people, an amazing, brilliant part of the brain that the rest of us never access is magically unlocked. Watching Rex and Rachel play, it's impossible not to feel the awesome, still untapped potential of the human mind.

The Comedy Of Errors Continues

It's bad enough for the music industry's long-term health (assuming such a concept still exists) that an ever-decreasing number of people are buying CDs in ever-decreasing amounts, but when record companies seemingly go out of their way to piss off the remaining people who are still actually paying for physical product, you have to wonder sometimes at the point of it all.

The breaking New Order reissue debacle is only the latest in a series of self-inflicted PR black-eyes suffered by what's left of the Big Four distributors over the last few years. What is particularly disturbing in this instance is that the company at fault here is the once-mighty Rhino Records, who were at one time considered the best reissue label on the planet, with a reputation for sonic and packaging excellence recognized by consumers and retailers alike. Granted, the brain trust that made the label great has long since bolted the coop, but for this same label to not only release such a shoddily-created product with no input whatsoever from the band itself is one thing, but to then go ahead and release it in the United States (despite numerous complaints had already surfaced overseas) and then not even acknowledge that there is any problem until most die-hard fans have already impatiently snapped up their copies is simply inexcusable. In effect, what we have here is yet another example of labels seeking to squeeze maximum profits wherever possible while whittling down manpower and tossing previously trumpeted standards of quality and worksmanship right out the window.

It's bad enough that we're being conditioned as a society to accept slapdash plastic doo-dads rushed to market to meet quarterly expectations for their parent multinationals (how often do we pick up buggy cell phones and video game systems that don't always work correctly and accept this crap in order to be among the first to own them), but now this cynical attitude is spreading to "deluxe" reissues of 25 year old records, as well. With catalog departments being systematically pared down to skeleton crews, the job of researching and remastering old recordings has become far more of a major undertaking than it was in headier times, and time-saving shortcuts such as using sub-par quality LP-pressing masters or even vinyl records themselves as source material have become a more common practice as of late, particularly in Europe.


Another victim of this new corporate reality is the hatchet job done by EMI on the Pink Floyd box set Oh, By The Way last Christmas. What was already shaky idea to begin with ("Hey, let's put every Pink Floyd CD ever made -- not including any live albums, bonus tracks, singles or non-album cuts -- into a super-expensive, but cheaply made cardboard box and then market it to people who already own all the albums!"), was made far worse when thousands of irritated customers began reporting mis-printed CDs ("Hey! Why does Wish You Were Here suddenly sound exactly like Obscured By Clouds?"), doubled-up CDs ("Hey! I have two copies of Ummagumma, Disc 1!") , or even completely-wrong pressings ("Hey! This isn't Pink Floyd at all!"). For a list price of $299.99, you might think that some level of quality control was observed somewhere along the production line, but apparently even that is too much to expect these days. Silly us.

Perhaps the worst industry practice that is making even hardened music dorks such as I think twice about plunking down money for new CDs is the ongoing race to create the loudest, most unlistenable CDs possible. There was an infamous quote in Rolling Stone magazine a couple of years ago from no less than Bob Dylan that summed up the state of the art in music in no uncertain terms: "(modern albums) have sound all over them. There's no definition of nothing, no vocal, no nothing, just like ... static."

While it's certainly debatable at what point the loudness wars started in the 1990s, it was The Beatles who initially set the bar for increased volume in 1986 when their early catalog appeared on CD for the first time, with all of their discs mastered nearly twice as loud as any other rock titles on the market.

It took a few years for modern rock to catch on, but it started to happen around 1992-1994, when albums by Metallica, , Nirvana, Nine Inch Nails, Stone Temple Pilots, and Alice In Chains seemed to leap forth from speakers with real, tangible ferocity, especially when compared to the rest of the market at the time. Of course, many of their competitors (or the heads of their labels) heard these records and then asked their producers and engineers why they couldn't make records that sounded just as loud (if not more so) as Metallica, In Utero, The Downward Spiral, Core, or Dirt did, and the race was on.

It was also right around this time that the first "remastered" CDs started to appear in record stores. The argument for the existence of these refurbished albums was that either a.) many CDs of older albums were initially rushed to market in the mid 1980s with little regard to making sure that the original master tapes had been sourced for optimum sound quality (hmm, sound familiar?) or b.) advances in sound reproduction technology since 1983 had made it possible for CDs to sound even "better" than before as a "warmer," more analog-feeling ambience of sound was now becoming possible.

I would be remiss not to mention that the real point to this wave of upgraded classics was, of course, to force die-hard fans to buy their favorite CDs all over again (which some maintain was the true reason for all of this in the first place). Now, it would have been fine and dandy to remaster these older albums once and then let the upgraded, "corrected" copies stand at that, but some records have been now been reissued and remastered multiple times, with differences in sonic quality and mastering on each different iteration. This practice certainly gives credence to those who feel that all of this is just a way to part fools from their money one more time, especially as these same records get progressively shittier sounding with every new appearance on the market.

I had been aware of this loudness war for years, especially since I used to make mix tapes for myself and my friends constantly, and learned early on what recording levels certain CDs from which time periods or musical genres needed to be set at for the best sound quality (and smoothest listening experience) on a finished TDK SA-90 cassette. My frustration with wildly varying levels of output (try making a full-career hits mix tape sourced from old and new Bruce Springsteen CDs to get an idea of where I'm coming from) had me solidly in the "remaster everything!" corner for years, and the first instance where I can recall a new record being "brick-walled" to the point of distraction was Oasis' 1997 release Be Here Now: though I wrote off a lot of my displeasure with that record at the time as being subpar writing and mixing more than anything else. After all, this was the same summer that Radiohead's similarly-mastered classic O.K. Computer had taken over the world, and that record was just great, thank you very much.

My first real animosity against this practice of level compression and peak-limiting came along five years later, when Rush released their absolutely unlistenable reunion album Vapor Trails. After years of earth-shaking build up from sundry rock and pop acts across the spectrum, here at last was a record that was so invasively and unbelievably shrill that it wasn't so much a "listening experience" as a buzz saw to the forehead.

These days, CDs with no dynamic range whatsoever are commonplace, especially at the major label level (indies either can't afford the software, or somehow just know better). Some of the blame is certainly attainable to the race to be as loud as the competition, yet other factors like a sea change in listening habits amongst music buyers away from expensive rack stereo systems and towards iPods, cell phones, and tiny PC speakers also have done their part to alter the way music is presented. While many consumers don't really seem to care that they no longer need volume knobs on their car stereos, enough have banded together in online communities that a whole secondary market of people actively searching out, say, older editions of Led Zeppelin and Genesis CDs has emerged in the underground, claiming that these CDs were actually done right the first time around and have only been marred by any remastering done since the mid-late 1980s. Even younger music fans have noticed recently how much better the video game version of Metallica's Death Magnetic sounds than the actual CD (a graphical comparison can be seen here).

Perhaps the most darkly amusing (nevermind ironic) side effect of these shenanigans is that a new generation of music buyers have embraced the once-comatose format of vinyl LP records as a superior alternative to compact discs. Once they realized what was happening, labels cynically began cashing in: even going so far as to issue record bags emblazoned with their laughable new catch phrase "because sound matters."

The best part? Out of this vinyl resurgence comes a new ridiculous extreme embodied by the bonus CD packaged with vinyl copies of Lindsey Buckingham's new album Gift Of Screws. Now, the idea of throwing in a "bonus" CD copy of a release with the vinyl LP is a nice idea, sure, but the sticker on this album proudly proclaims:

180 GRAM VINYL + AUDIOPHILE CD

RECORDED MIXED & MASTERED ON ANALOG TAPE. INCLUDES CD OF THE UNCOMPRESSED VINYL MASTER PLATING & PRESSING AT R.T.I.

What the hell? I've heard many times before the old argument that vinyl sounds better than CD, but this is something new. If I am reading this correctly, Warner Bros, Records is now implictly admitting that modern mass-marketed CDs sound like dog shit. Even if you think this reaction is over the line, doesn't the very existence of a specialized "audiophile" pressing (available only when you buy the vinyl copy, no less! ha ha!) make you wonder what the hell the regular version is supposed to be?

One funny thing about modern "brick-walled" CDs: they make average bit rate-quality mp3s sound even worse than they already do (as if that were possible). We used to joke at work that the sudden leap in CD volume across the board in the last decade was actually a deliberate and subtle sabotaging of the mp3 format by the major labels, but in light of recent events, it appears that is giving the suits far too much credit.

(Youtube): Ah L'amour

Submitted for your approval: a vicious, dispirited, disturbed, and absolutely hilarious piece of stick figure animation for the perpetually lovelorn (or cynical):



Thanks for the heads up, Keith. :-)

All Palin'd Out

You know, it has been (and continues to be) my belief that we have not seen the last of this woman, but is there really going to be a Sarah Palin story in the news every day for the next four freaking years?

Is it just me or have we not missed a day since November 5 without some kind of article about the ex-VP candidate appearing in the news?

November 5: PALIN HEADS HOME TO ALASKA

November 6: PALIN ARRIVES HOME IN ALASKA

November 7: PALIN SAYS THIS

November 8: PALIN SAYS THAT

November 9: PALIN THINKS THIS

November 10: PALIN THINKS THAT

November 11: PALIN ATTENDS SUCH AND SUCH EVENT AND SAYS THIS

November 12: PALIN ATTENDS SUCH AND SUCH EVENT AND SAYS THAT

November 13: PALIN: "HE IS OUR PRESIDENT AND WE SHOULD SUPPORT HIM, EVEN IF HE IS A TERRORIST-HUGGING COMMUNIST SLEEPER AGENT, WHICH IS POSSIBLE"

November 14: PALIN INTERVIEWED. AGAIN.

November 15: PALIN'S THOUGHTS ON OBAMA'S CABINET NOMINEES

November 16: PALIN COMMENTS ON THE PASSING OF MIRIAM MAKEBA

Not to be silly, but I almost feel like I need to double check with everyone: Barack Obama did win this election, right? Sometimes it sure doesn't feel like it.

The way things are going, we'll soon be seeing headlines like these in our near future:

November 27: THANKSGIVING "ALWAYS A BLESSING FROM OUR LORD" SAYS PALIN

November 28: PALIN HAILS EARLY BLACK FRIDAY SHOPPERS AS "TRUE AMERICAN PATRIOTS"

December 25: PALIN FAMILY CELEBRATES CHRISTMAS IN AGGRESSIVELY MODEST FASHION

December 26: BOXING DAY CLOTHING RETURNS "A FAMILIAR RITUAL" CRACKS PALIN

January 1: PALIN WELCOMES NEW YEAR, FIELD-STRIPS A HOWITZER

Come on, "mainstream liberal" media! Enough, already!

Chill Of An Early Winter

Willowick, Ohio. Today. 3:00 PM.

Mission Accomplished

I started this blog almost exactly four years ago in a fit of righteous anger over the results of the last presidential election, but I couldn't feel more differently now as I sit here tonight banging out a few semi-drunk thoughts into the ether at half past three in the morning, buzzing with excitement and satisfaction in the afterglow of the biggest presidential election in 48 years.

This is truly a moment for the history books: for the first time in its 240 year history, The United States Of America has elected a black president. This is an event I never thought I would never see in my lifetime, and I admit wondering to myself over the last few weeks if this country really had the stomach to go out and vote for the change it so clearly wanted, especially in the aftermath of some of the slimiest shadowy campaign stunts in the modern political era. Make no mistake: racism is still a blight on America that may be generations (if ever) away from disappearing for good, yet in the end, Barack Obama prevailed.

The issues facing our President-Elect over the next four years are some of the most formidable this country has faced in nearly a century. That Obama will take on these problems while contending with a jittery, sharply divided electorate and an economy teetering on the brink of collapse certainly isn't going to make his job any easier, yet I sense he is truly up for the challenge. The lack of experience cited by Obama's opponent John McCain during the campaign is a true concern, and I hope that with some careful administrative selection and a true willingness to reach across the ideological divide and create some kind of lasting, centrist unity, that some kind of headway can be forged.

As for the Republican Party (particularly "the base"): welcome to what the Left felt like in 2004. In this case, however, the race wasn't stolen from you, though I'm sure some of you will convince yourselves otherwise. Go ahead and blame Obama, ACORN, and MSNBC (not to mention the rest of the so-called "mainstream media"), but eventually you'll have to look in the mirror and realize that this time the fault rests squarely with you and your candidate.

As much as I admired McCain's concession speech last night, he was fully right to shoulder the blame for his failure to win the White House. Where was this guy over the last 10 months? I believe McCain might have made a good president, but in his desire to win the prize, he let his campaign be hijacked by the same mindset that brought the incumbent President to power. Thus, McCain found it near-impossible to dodge accusations of being a clone of George W. Bush, especially when he found himself bending over backwards to rally his skeptical base instead of trying to win over anyone to the left of, say, Jean Schmidt.

Here's the funny thing: as much as they openly revile the evil "mainstream media," the Republican Party used them relentlessly throughout the campaign, cumulatively branding Obama as an inexperienced, unpatriotic, racist Socialist Muslim of indeterminate origin. All of the networks, even the hated MSNBC (the anti-Fox News, if you will) gave plenty to airtime to discussing every insult, attack, accusation and insinuation the Right could manufacture. Only this time, instead of ignoring the attacks as they had in 2004, the Democrats actually fought back, which seemed to catch the Right off guard. While Obama relentlessly stuck to his message, McCain seemed to switch tactics on a weekly basis.

The man who conceded the race last night was a man I liked: he came off as humble, decent, intelligent, contrite ... a leader. Pity he let himself be managed by a bunch of second generation Lee Atwaters. Rather than seriously reaching out to the Left, McCain's campaign pandered to the worst elements of human nature (primarily Hate and Fear of The Other), which alone made any speech given by Obama feel like a warm ray of sunshine in comparison. If McCain had made his run as the person he was in 2000, he might very well have been the guy doing the victory speeches last night instead of Barack Obama. Instead, Rick Davis and Team McCain opted to run this campaign focusing on personalities (and the differences in such between the candidates) rather than issues, and in the end they got steamrolled. Lesson learned? I guess we'll see in a few years ...

Further Proof That Your Vote Always Counts

Wow. According to CNN, the margin for Obama's victory in Lake County, Ohio last night was 125 votes. One hundred and twenty five.

Obama: 52,556
McCain: 52,431