all hail vic

filarious!

just wanted to post this because it's well worth a look! it's pretty funny, really.

a little removal

Considering it's my first non-review post in awhile, this post might fall in the category of TMI (Too Much Information).

But first, before I get to the TMI (which I'll put in the extended entry), I thought I'd post something different:

Okay, so I can guess whacher thinkin'. Why am I posting such random images?

To note:

The photos were taken at the Wallenstein Palace and Garden here in Prague.

Why the same person? Why, that's my girlfriend, Caroline. A close-up for you:

I also must apologize to those of you, including my oldest friend, who I haven't written in awhile (and whom I've neglected to even tell about Caroline). I've been a slacker and all blame lies in my laziness at keeping in touch.

Anyway, there ya go. Now for the TMI.

So, I had my back waxed yesterday.

I've never thought back hair was attractive, so it was only inevitable that I grow some. Well, that and the testosterone in me.

Anyway, it was an interesting experience and sounds a lot more painful than it actually is. I was only brought to tears twice. Heh. Just kidding. It wasn't that painful at all.

But I can get the general idea of what women must feel when they wax their more sensitive areas. I think the back is not really a terribly sensitive (in terms of feeling) area of the body. Actually, I'm guessing that by removing my hair, I've actually lowered my senses there because the movement of the hair was probably what gave me the most sensation re: my back.

Hmm... Anyway, what a wonderful first post of any substance in awhile. I hope you all enjoyed it as much as me!

X-Men: The Last Stand directed by Brett Ratner

Let me start by admitting that I was an enormous X-fan back in the early-90’s, so my expectations for any X-Men movie are already high. Bryan Singer did a great job with the first two films, choosing to film scripts based more on character development and less around action set-pieces.

Singer left the series to direct the new Superman movie and the audience got Brett Ratner. Brett Ratner has always been an uninspired director who could make a competent and entertaining film but who lacked any sort of flair or sense of individuality. For this reason, my expectations coming into the third film were not as high as they were for the first film.

The movie starts off with Professor X stepping out of a car with Magneto in tow, an obvious indication that the scene takes place in the past. They are at Jean Grey’s house to talk to her parents and try to have her attend Xavier’s school. After the credits, the modern day X-Men are seen fighting an enormous robot - one of the Sentinels, for those in the know. The fight is really a part of their training in the mansion’s danger room.

The movie proceeds apace as many little, quick incidents are woven together – so many that it would be time consuming and gratuitous to list them all. There is no pause as each scene takes anywhere between 30 seconds to one minute (not including the action set-pieces, of course); suffice it to say, it’s a very MTV generation film. There are some major character deaths or disappearances and yet no real character development.

Whoever decided to greenlight this movie with Ratner directing and a completely worthless script made an enormous error. The style and substance, or what there was of it, is gone. This film is too fast-paced, at a lean 104 minutes, to give any character even a modicum of development and this makes it hard to watch without sighing. It feels like somebody basted the turkey but forget to put it in the oven before serving it. And a turkey it is.

The script is incredibly bad, as I’ve just noted, but the direction also hurts the movie substantially. Ratner has made fun films in the past, but they are by no means films of quality or substance. His choices in this film, like in his other films, are obvious decisions with the camera placed in obvious positions. Ratner is sometimes good at mimicking other directors abilities, but he misses the Singer mark by a wide margin. The darkness of the visuals is a stab in the right direction, but it merely serves to make the film harder to watch since the film never achieves the dark mood necessary to accompany by a lowly lit film.

Accompanying Ratner’s bland style is a completely overused and simultaneously anti-climatic score. The music is not the anthem it needs to be: we’re talking about superheroes here so where’s the super-powered score?

The movie’s not all bad though, as the visual effects are spectacular with the final sequence with the Dark Phoenix unleashed as a highlight. The mutants are finally given the opportunity to make their powers fit the scope of an X-Men film. Unfortunately, the rest of the film is so bad that it only serves to illustrate the potential of the film. If the scope of Ratner’s battles could be combined with Singer’s character development and style, then you’d have a truly excellent adaptation of the books.

In the end, the film’s an overproduced mish-mash of hodgepodge with no substance. It’s a shame really, because the characters and the story behind them have a fantastic history, but this film merely nods to them. Since there are solo movies based on some of these characters in the pipeline, I think it’s probably safe to say good riddance to this series for the time being – if they do decide to resurrect it, let’s hope it’s with a better script, better direction and better music.

GRADE: D

Mason Jennings - Boneclouds

Many times in the past I have referred to Mason Jennings as Minnesota’s contemporary incarnation of Bob Dylan – natch, Dylan was also Minnesotan. Alas, that comparison is getting increasingly difficult to maintain.

Mason Jennings came out of the gates years ago with his self-released, eponymous debut, a stripped-down and sometimes aggressive set of modern-era folk songs. Over the years, however, he’s been getting increasingly successful – good for him – and hence has been able to step up his production technique as well – not so good for him.

The charm of Mason Jennings’ songs has always been in the simplicity of the arrangements and the gorgeous lull of his deeply baritone voice. With an approach similar to Dylan in his spoken-sing-song vocals, Jennings always conveyed both emotion and urgency in his lyrics and his songs overall.

Now Jennings is back with a new album, Boneclouds, and it is his first to be released under a major label (Isaac Brock of Modest Mouse’s Glacial Pace, which is under Epic/Sony). The album starts off abruptly, with no warning or build-up, by launching into the first single, “Be Here Now”. It’s a decent enough song focusing on longing, but the one thing immediately apparent is that Jennings’ simple production of yesteryear is now gone. In “Be Here Now”, Jennings’ lulling voice gets lost in a sea of echoes during the chorus – it steals the beauty and the tender lyrics are made more trivial. As the song progresses, the production becomes increasingly apparent and the song suffers for it.

“Gentlest Hammer” follows “Be Here Now” and it features some of the strongest lyrics on the album. Starting off with a forceful drum intro, it’s easy to assume that Jennings is about to tear down the walls with an electric rock anthem, but it’s a ruse and the song lapses into a decent folk-inspired groove, all the while accompanied by its driving drum track.

The third track is a highlight. Maintaining the album’s theme thus far, “If You Ain’t Got Love” sings about love and loss. Thankfully the mixing on the song is kept to a minimum and the simplicity of old Mason Jennings is given a brief chance to shine.

Jennings has always played with his sound a bit, which is admirable but has in the past led to disastrous, if interesting, results. Occasionally, his experiments succeed and there is a successful example on the album – “Some Say I’m Not” is an almost tribal dirge with a soaring, prolonged chorus. On the other hand, “Where the Sun Had Been” is buried in production, replete with a synthetic choir, and so definitively lacks the beauty found so regularly on his earliest albums. The theme of the song is dark but the message is lost because the production makes the song inaccessible and a hard listen.

Jennings’ lyrics have also always been hit or miss: sometimes they are breathtakingly complicated (“If You Need a Reason”, which also features a gorgeous wordless vocal breakdown) and one would think the song would suffer as a result, but he somehow pulls and shapes them into something beautiful; other times, however, they can be rife with cliché and/or awkward (“Which Way Your Heart Will Go” with lines like “silver swing-set shining”). In the past, some of his best lyrical work was found in politically themed songs (“Black Panther” or “Dr. King”, both from Birds Flying Away; “Ballad of Paul and Sheila” from Use Your Voice) and those same songs came from some deeper anger in Jennings, but that urge has been mostly replaced by softer, more romantic yearnings on this new album. The weakest song on Boneclouds is the most topical one, the aforementioned “Where the Sun Had Been”.

Of extra note is the iTunes exclusive track “Things Change”. I don’t know if it was intentional or not, but Jennings wrote a song titled so closely to a recent Dylan song (“Things Have Changed”) that it will only increase the comparisons already being drawn between the two.

Being a Mason Jennings fan dating back to the release of his first album, it’s hard for me to accept his evolution. I don’t want to deny him the ability to change, but I do lament the decisions he’s been making – his songs are either redundant, sounding much like what I’ve heard from him before, or his songs are lost and meandering, searching for some form of a new sound but still not quite finding it. He needs to leave the production box at home and get back to the band in the living room feel of his earlier albums.

Of course, the best songs on this album are the retreads, the ones that maintain the simplicity of his first albums, but they have a nasty habit of sounding the same – is “If You Ain’t Got Love” really that different from “If You Need a Reason”? That’s not to detract from their beauty, but he can do so much better. I almost wish Jennings would get angry and write a raging song a la “Godless” (from Mason Jennings), just to reconnect with the spirit of his younger self. These delicate love songs are all fine and good, but they also lack the fire necessary to make them fantastic.

GRADE: C+

Gnarls Barkley - St. Elsewhere

It seems like DJ Danger Mouse is all over the place these days. Ever since his breakthrough mash-up of Jay-Z’s Black Album and The Beatles’ White Album, he’s grown in recognition and last year he collaborated with MF Doom for Danger Doom, which was widely hailed as innovative and influential. Well, now he’s teaming up with another rapper from outside the mainstream, Cee-Lo, for what is a more innovative and what will most likely be a more influential album, St. Elsewhere.

Together, DJ Danger Mouse and Cee-Lo make up Gnarls Barkley and their first collaborative album is undeniably soulful.

Starting with the sound of a film projector kicking into gear, the album presents itself as a show. The first song, entitled “Go-Go Gadget Gospel” , is a frantic dash away from the gate. This is where their main inspiration becomes apparent and that inspiration is not 80’s cartoons or gospel – it’s Outkast.

It is not just the opening song, but the entire album feels like an Outkast album – it’s frenetic, weird and deceptively simple despite its complex arrangements. It just makes most other hip-hop (or soul-hop, for lack of a better term) artists from today seem outdated and passé. (The extent of Outkast’s influence here is so great that “The Boogie Monster” shares a sound and feel almost identical to “Dracula’s Wedding” from The Love Below.)

The mania of “Go-Go Gadget Gospel” is eclipsed with the deeply soulful second cut, “Crazy”, which has strings, gospel choir back-up vocals and Cee-Lo doing his best to croon – it works and it’s a fantastic song.

“Smiley Faces”, along with “Transformer”, are about as close Gnarls Barkley comes to directly copying The Love Below. That doesn’t detract from its (or their) excellence though. Both songs are destined to get people on the dancefloor and exhaust said people quickly.

The songs are quick but each one has its own merit, for the most part. The songs rarely pass the three-minute mark and I think the album survives on that. Too many hip-hop albums now have five-minute or longer average running times and when there’s little build-up or change between verses, the songs can run themselves out very quickly. By keeping the songs short, Gnarls Barkley thankfully manages to avoid this trap.

Picking up where Andre 3000 (of Outkast) left off with The Love Below, Gnarls Barkley’s St. Elsewhere wears its inspirations on its sleeve but it doesn’t hurt the power of the album. With only one not-so-great song (an unnecessary, almost note-for-note, cover of The Violent Femmes’ “Gone Daddy Gone”), the album is nearly flawless. The single biggest flaw is indeed the album’s length – it’s too short and ends too soon! With songs so gloriously entertaining and fun, one would hope for more just because they seemed to have found their groove and it’s that that should be prolonged.

There are a few things enable this album to surpass The Love Below; the first is the lyrics. Cee-Lo has composed lyrics that don’t contain any of the misogynism or unnecessary sexual stories found on a lot of Outkast’s songs. In fact, the album hits a particular dark yet beautiful note when Cee-Lo sings on “Just a Thought”: “When I was lost I even found myself/Looking in the gun’s direction/And so I tried/Everything but suicide.” But he’s fine, the song notes. It’s a weirdly percussion-laden song, but it is also dramatic and poignant – a word not commonly applied to any form of hip-hop.

The second thing that makes St. Elsewhere a step above The Love Below is the absence of skits – “Where Are My Panties?” may have been amusing once or twice, but skits like that one get old very quickly. Again, thankfully, Gnarls Barkley have wisely left the unnecessary out and kept only the meat of any album – the songs.

If this is the beginning to a new movement towards soul-hop, a mixture of soul, hip-hop and electronic/breakbeat, then we should be thankful. Modern, mainstream hip-hop is about to receive a much needed kick in the ass which will bring it back to a contradictorily more organic, yet more produced sound.

Things have been getting brighter on the musical horizon for a few years now, with Britney Spears and Limp Bizkit knock-offs finally getting shown the door and melody finally being let back in. Gnarls Barkley puts on a good show and they deserve to be recognized.

GRADE: A

the thing about my knees

i went and saw a third knee doctor yesterday. without me saying anything, he echoed the thoughts of doctor number 2: the cartilage behind my patella.

what does this mean?

well, for one thing, this will probably be a life-long problem, which sucks.

however, it also means that i can play sports. they might not be comfortable, but i can play them nonetheless. it is, however, recommended that i wear knee braces, which also sucks.

it is highly recommended for me to swim and ride bikes and etc etc. non-impact sports, i presume.

this is good news overall.

the doctor also gave me the first of three injections in each knee, designed to lubricate the cartilage in a way.

the spectacular thing is this: the injections and the labor of it cost all of 1200Kc, which translates to roughly $55 - and this is for all three injections, meaning yesterday's, next week's and two weeks from yesterday! AAAHHHH, the wonder of social healthcare. sheesh. the U.S. is terribly behind in some areas, and this is one of them. i don't even think the insurance i have was applied, either...

Pearl Jam – Pearl Jam

My early teenage life is returning with a vengeance. First, I spent some time last weekend listening to the Nirvana box set from last year and then on Tuesday, Pearl Jam dropped a bomb…

I read somewhere that artist’s self-titled albums are sometimes considered their definitive work – the encapsulation of the artist’s career. If that’s the case, Pearl Jam has steady-footing for longevity.

Pearl Jam’s Pearl Jam strides out of the gate with three fast-rocking numbers, “Life Wasted” , “Worldwide Suicide”, and “Comatose” , which would not feel out of place on one of the group’s earliest albums, you choose which one. “Worldwide Suicide” is a bitter requiem simultaneously honoring those fallen in our current war and shaming those responsible for sending these soldiers to war. Since politics is something Pearl Jam has frequently dabbled in (see “Bushleaguer”), it isn’t out of place if indeed this album is a summary of their career.

The album doesn’t let up as it rolls into the fourth song, “Severed Hand”, which is a fast-paced song with a slow(er) motion chorus that puts a bad light to drug abuse. The following song, “Marker in the Sand”, is the first one to slow down substantially, most prominently in its’ plaintive, existential chorus.

Thinking of slowing down, Pearl Jam proceeds into “Parachutes” next – a gorgeously lulling song for a band of “grunge” origins. In “Parachutes”, an organ compliments the dual guitar (one acoustic, one electric) rhythm. I’m unsure if it was intentional or not, but it seems the band also pays quick homage to Sir Paul McCartney (and “Band on the Run” in particular) with a wah-wah bit on the electric guitar in “Parachutes” towards the end. Regardless, the song is beautiful and one of my favorites on the album.

“Gone” is another moving ballad, this one lamenting the passage of time and escaping from familiarity – “Gonna leave it all behind me/This town”.

The highlight of the album, for me, comes with the shortest song that, incidentally, is listed as a reprise of the first song – “Life Wasted (Reprise)”. Outside of sharing lyrics and chord structure, the song is a spare tune featuring Vedder singing alongside an organ and it brings to mind Vedder’s duet with Neil Young for the America: A Tribute to Heroes benefit.

Other notable songs on the album include the sad, anti-war “Army Reserve” and the lost lover lament “Come Back”.

It’s amazing that after over a decade of countless singers trying to imitate (and never surpass) Eddie Vedder, that this group still holds any resonance with me. This album also serves to remind me why I truly dislike the label of “Alternative” music – Pearl Jam and Nirvana were both labeled as “grunge rock” and saviors of the “alternative music” movement in the early 90’s. Pearl Jam, more than Nirvana, never really jibed well with that label because their music was often straight-forward rock (or maybe a bit experimental). Nevertheless, Pearl Jam is proof that the band is still relevant and can still write elegantly layered songs.

GRADE: B+