Shippin' Fools

Disclaimer: This post is purely in good fun. Anyone should realize that there are a million and one reasons why someone would ship one couple or another, and merely favoring a particular couple has no direct link to any aspect of anyone's personality or their life-experience. Also the "Shippin' Fools" title is just a pun, I'm a shipper m'self.

Truth be known, I never gave a thought to iCarly couples until very recently. It's funny because I look back on the big "shipping" scenes like the ones that "prove" one character likes another. And now I realize how obvious these scenes are, but before I was just totally oblivious, like "duurr... they're just friends." But I guess being oblivious to things is one my objectives in life, so...

Here's what I think about the different (main) couples, or rather... what I think each of these couples MEANS, man. It's deep n stuff.

Carly & Freddie ("Creddie")

People who ship Carly & Freddie are traditionalists in a certain sense. Romantics at heart. They believe that unrequited love can become requited, and that pining for someone over the course of years (in classic Gatsby fashion) is endearing rather than depressing, demeaning, or unhealthy. They're probably people who either have someone they themselves hopelessly pine for (like Freddie), or they dream of having someone hopelessly pine for them, because they're worth it, damn it! (which is, I'm sure, how Carly feels.)

Sam & Freddie ("Seddie")

People who ship Sam & Freddie believe that passion and fire are more important in a relationship than petty little things like being nice or civil to each other. They see through the tumultuous facade and understand that Sam's cruelty is her way of crying out for love and appreciation (potentially). They're quite possibly people who are simultaneously too proud and too shy to let their true feelings out.

Carly & Sam ("Cam")

Camfans value closeness and synergy in a relationship. They see Sam and Carly's close-knit friendship as the ideal building-block to a strong romance. They're idyllic to a fault, falling for the classic concept that best friends make the best couples. They're quite possibly in love with their best friend, or emotionally stunted enough to seek comfort from what's close and familiar rather than venturing out into the wide world of possible romances.

Sam & Gibby ("Sibby")

People who favor the Sam & Gibby pairing are total individualists. They see that Sam and Gibby are both social misfits in their own way. A Sibbster is decisive. They don't bother with complex love triangles, they find love where they can.

Melanie & Freddie ("Meddie")

Meddie shippers are a fickle and illustrious bunch. They're willing to think outside the box, but they prefer things on the safe side. Melanie already likes Freddie, unambiguously. These shippers might be people who like things to be a little special and unique, but not off-putting or adventurous.

I'm a Cam shipper myself. I mean, it's a no brainer, as they're my favorite characters. And aside from their obvious chemistry, they're just the best for each other. They need each other because their divergent personalities balance each other out, without the vicious turmoil you get between Sam & Freddie. However, as I watch the show more, Seddie starts to seem like a pretty good option, they could be very good with each other. Nothing matches Cam, but Seddie & Meddie are definitely decent. Even Creddie's not bad. And ideologically I appreciate Sibby a lot.

My Life in Music: 2010

Disclaimer: this post concerns music I listened to and discovered in 2010, not new releases in 2010. That being said, there are like 5 or 6 new releases represented here.

2010 was one of the most incredible years for music listening that I have ever had. It viciously dwarfs all my musical advancements in '09 and '08, and quite possibly gives classic formative years like 2002, 2005, and 2007 a run for their money. The unprecedented quantity, quality and variety, as well as the gusto with which I was fortunate enough to greet them, truly staggers me. And so I figured a full-blown assessment of this year's haul was in order. First, the awards.

THE ZENNIES

2010 MVP: Neil Young

If you had asked me in November 2009, whether Neil Young would ever rank as one of my favorite artists again, I would have told you "probably not." That was before my shopaholism landed me a copy of the Everybody Knows This is Nowhere remaster, which set into motion a vast chain reaction which has resulted in a new and greater reign of influence for Neil. In fact, the extent to which I liked Neil in the past is a mere footstep compared to the heights he has attained in 2010. With his chameloen powers, he was able to shadow me all along the way, with grim sobriety in winter, alterna-rock fury in my 90s phase, and sentimental pop mentalities in the latter quarters. Since Neil was my favorite artist in 2003... does that make him, like, my double favorite artist in 2010? How can you be better than the best?

2010 Most Promising New Addition: Paramore

I had to make a really tough decision here... Paramore versus Miranda Cosgrove. Make no mistake, in 2010 I unquestionably enjoyed Miranda Cosgrove more. Furthermore, she means a lot more to me, and represents a brand new style (electronic pop) unique to my discography. It's truly up in the air whether Miranda or Paramore will fare better in the coming years. But "most promising" means, to me, future longevity. And so I had to look at my history. Who are the artists who stay strong over years, and who are the ones who fade away? Well, there's no hiding it. Rock music tends to reign supreme. So I had to guess that Paramore would go further. But, frankly, I'm rooting for Miranda Cosgrove. That's not to sell Paramore short, though, their power-pop glory is infectiously empowering to the extent that I can only listen to them in incraments... otherwise I would die of heat exhaustion from rocking out too hard. True story.

2010 Most Important Record: Immaculate Pop Volume One

I never could have predicted the snowball effect this humble little disc would have. I just started to have a nostalgic or bittersweet reaction to some of the things I was being forced to listen to at work, and decided to burn a compilation. What resulted was a truly idyllic little period in the dead of winter where I would alternate between my grim black metal collection and this bubblegum compilation. For a long time, I figured this would be the only pop music I ever listened to seriously. It'd be half a year later until I started getting into pop music as a whole, but Immaculate Pop unquestionably helped transform my perception of pop music to the point where I was able to fully appreciate it.

Now onto the real content. It would be crazy to detail the vast number of amazing bands, amazing albums, and amazing songs I was pleased to enjoy this year. So what I did was compose a terse boxed set which compiles both the individual tracks which really moved my soul, as well as tracks to represent the unbelievable multitude of whole bands and albums that blew my mind this year. Mind you this doesn't represent everything... just the biggest, most major events of this year.

A second effect of this compilation is that it details my life over the course of 2010 down to near-perfection. I started out the year with somber, sober precision, gleaming joy from the tranquility of blizzards and using my sober boredom as an excuse to become one-and-the-same with dense, intricate, powerful music. Then my life became lysergic for a time, and I submerged myself wholly in bittersweet fantasy, living halfway between the real world and some 1990s dream. Following that, stone cold precision became my forte once again, and natural mania overtook all my endeavors. My taste veered to the bombastic and the upfront; to simplicity and pop hooks of impenetrable force.

My Life in 2010 (Boxed Set)

Disc 1
Stone Cold: Winter of Sobering Gloom

1. Jesu Dod -- Burzum
2. My Journey to the Stars -- Burzum
3. Southern Man (Remastered) -- Neil Young & Crazy Horse
4. Sverddans -- Burzum
5. Hand In My Pocket -- Alanis Morissette
6. What's Been Going On -- Amos Lee
7. Love Story -- Taylor Swift
8. What's Up -- 4 Non Blondes
9. Son of Hades -- Aura Noir
10. Il etait une foret... -- Gris

Disc 2
Wistful Revery: Lucid 90s Adult Kitsch

1. Prime of Life -- Neil Young & Crazy Horse
2. Loose Change -- Neil Young & Crazy Horse
3. Pocahontas [YotH] -- Neil Young & Crazy Horse
4. Love And Only Love [Weld] -- Neil Young & Crazy Horse
5. Questioning My Sanity -- L7
6. Rockets -- Cat Power
7. Supernatural Radio -- Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
8. Good Enough -- Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
9. London Song -- The Breeders
10. Fate to Fatal -- The Breeders
11. Bukarest -- HotChaCha

Disc 3
Manic Euphoria: For The Love of Pop

1. Walls (Circus) -- Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
2. My Favorite Mistake -- Sheryl Crow
3. Because The Night -- Patti Smith
4. That's What You Get -- Paramore
5. Headphones On -- Miranda Cosgrove
6. Hide & Seek -- Ani DiFranco
7. Misery Business -- Paramore
8. Bam -- Miranda Cosgrove
9. Better Than Revenge -- Taylor Swift
10. Party Girl -- Miranda Cosgrove
11. Let the Flames Begin (The Final Riot!) -- Paramore
12. Thrasher -- Juniper Tar

The Good Wife (And What Your TV Says About You Behind Your Back)

Warning: If anyone out there is a diehard follower of The Good Wife, and you haven't watched the 7th episode of season 2 yet, the following blog entry contains very minor spoilers.

The Good Wife

A couple months ago or thereabout, Miranda Cosgrove appeared in an episode of the CBS drama series The Good Wife. I never bothered to watch it because, I guess, I feared it would be more of a cameo appearance or a token role. As it turns out, she plays a significant role.

I ended up checking out the episode after discovering that I had abysmally failed to watch Christmas In Washington, an annual concert event which this year featured Miranda Cosgrove performing "Last Christmas," a beautiful song having previously been covered immaculately by Taylor Swift.

Hating myself, I scoured Youtube for video, but there was none available. Still jonesing for a MiranCoz fix that my personality (what you sometimes call a "soul") was now expecting to receive, I decided to check out the aforementioned Good Wife episode. I had never watched The Good Wife before, but I'm familiar with its ilk. It's a by the numbers court room/political drama, and while as of late my taste has been for its polar opposite, I've been fond of this genre at times. So I was really excited to watch this episode.

I don't believe there exists any genre of television more archetypally adult than the courtroom drama... except for the courtroom drama which (inexplicably?) carries a parallel story about a politician's troubled bid for election amidst a corrupt system AND a parallel story about high-ranking suits embroiled in high-stakes office politics, none of which seem to intersect with each other or influence each other (I'm sure it would make perfect sense if I was familiar with this show).

Perpetually straight-faced, as melancholic as film noir, driven not by action but by words, and rife with grim moral dilemmas that are meant to define the psychological squalor of the modern age, The Good Wife (and the rest of its ilk) are everything that consequential adults are supposed to appreciate. At least in my perspective. Some might opt for the more critically acclaimed fare of The Sopranos and Breaking Bad, two of my favorite shows, but they include copious amounts of crime kitsch, which appeals to rebellious youths. Court room dramas are about truth, justice, the American way, and various moral dilemmas therein. In any case, it's a marked contrast from what Miranda Cosgrove had been involved in thusfar.

Miranda Cosgrove plays what is essentially a fictionalized amalgam of Miley Cyrus and Lindsay Lohan. She's a Disney recording star named Sloan who gets an underaged DUI which ends up turning into an attempted murder case. Sloan is notorious for a past lap dance scandal straight out of Miley's reality, and she is depicted undermining the honor of the court, reminiscent of Lohan's recent indiscretions. I found this re-appropriation of realities hard to swallow at first... I mean... talk about weird. Let's hire Miranda Cosgrove to portray... of all people... Disney's ill-mannered ragamuffins? I like Cyrus AND Lohan, but talk about a heady concept. Takes it a smidgen further than Freaky Friday!

In any case, once MiranCoz took control of the role, my identity crisis on her behalf subsided. I was impressed with her performance, though seeing as how I was expecting it to be good, I can't say I was blown away or anything. She definitely did a spot-on job filling the role of 'grim stoic entity' that everyone in a courtroom drama necessarily has to acquire, quite a far cry from the flighty flirty flamboyance of Carly Shay or the snarky cynical self-assurance of Megan Parker and Summer Hathaway.

I wouldn't necessarily say she removed herself from herself as much as Victoria Justice sometimes seems to, but she certainly far surpasses Katie Holmes' lone ability to act exactly like Joey Potter in every role she has ever performed (which, granted, isn't a bad character to play). What I can say is that I would definitely watch this show regularly if Miranda Cosgrove was a regular, and more improtantly I would be very, very interested in viewing other programs where Miranda performed similar roles.

She's proven her acting chops and I absolute can. not. wait. to see her appear on all kinds of other programs. And frankly, I enjoyed the juxtaposition provided by this most adult of genres. I'd like to see her do more of the same style, perhaps appear on The West Wing or something. Does The West Wing still make new episodes?

Miranda definitely seemed a lot older here, as well. Almost reminds me of the end of her run on Drake & Josh, when she had obviously out-grown her role as cute little (albeit evil) Megan Parker, and was ready to do iCarly. Of course, this could just mean that it's time for iCarly to enter a new phase. I wouldn't mind seeing iCarly: The College Years. ;)

And What Your TV Says About You Behind Your Back

ANYWAY... If I were trying to be all philysophical and chiz, I would say something like.... My feelings are summed up by this one scene early in the episode. The big bad lawyer people are discussing the case in the kitchen and the one lawyer's two young daughters come walking into the room laughing, and then they see the intense adult scene going on in the room, and they say "Oh, sorry," and walk away.

Court room dramas are fascinating stuff. The twists and turns are sure to always keep you guessing and it can be really satisfying to finally get to the bottom of the story at the end of the episode, when all the pieces fall into place. But in all in all, I think I'd rather watch Gibby burst out of a giant cherry pie like an alien chestburster while Jennette McCurdy poses like a grimlord. Man, I've spent years in the bleak fog of "adulthood" (whether genuine or wholly imagined), and there's something to be said for... wait for it... the zenlike immaturity of a youth. If given the option, I'd rather laugh than stare.

Of course, anyone who isn't an idiot will realize that these two states of being (colloquially "adulthood" and "youth,") are anything but mutually exclusive. And anyone who isn't an idiot and a half will realize that it's perfectly possible for a man to enjoy both children's sitcoms and courtroom dramas. I wonder which one Miranda Cosgrove prefers...

Top 15 Twitpics

Twitpics are fun. They're full of peculiar little personality slivers, especially coupled with the often idiosyncratic comments that accompany them. And they look nice. In honor of these facts, I've painstakingly compiled the greatest twitpics (out of many contenders). For variety's sake, I've omitted photos I've already posted on here (including the stunningly supreme picture of Victoria Justice hugging a mannequin, which you see to the right).

And trust me, it was hard narrowing it down to 15. There are so many good ones. I wanted to do a top 30. But that would be unwieldy.

Runner-up:

 

^^ "This is the face I made when I found out it takes 6 months to get your driver's license." 

#15 

^^ The band. I can't wait to meet her in person!!

#14

^^ Almost classical. Clearly Victoria is the one who should be in the portrait, not whoever that other girl is.

#13

 

^^ I like to imagine that crusing in a DeLorean, with a Hover Board, is just an average night for Jennette McCurdy. 

#12

 

^^ I like this 'cause she's in the car cruisin' and hanging out some random night and she doesn't provide any explanation other than "<3" Like... what does she love, herself? The car? The American Night? <3

#11 

  

^^ Heh, love the meta. And it was cool how excited she was to have found this poster. 

#10 

 

^^ awww.... I love fried chicken. Big iCarly fans here. I wanna be that cool.

#9 

  

 ^^ (from MiranCoz) "Walking in the mountains in the dark and noticed this sign..." So not only does she notice aliens, but she likes walking in the mountains in the dark! *swoon* 

#8

 

^^ I love when MiranCoz tweets about her education. It fascinates me, kinda autonomous too don't you think? She almost looks like Jackie Burkhart here, if you ask me. 

#7

 

^^ from Victoria Justice: "About to do our run through of this weeks episode! Dora's excited..." The most endearingly, adorably, quirky and crazy-as-hell thing I've ever read. 

#6 

  

^^ Being famous, young, and beautiful will get you absolutely ANYWHERE. True story. 

#5 

^^ She is simply the BEST at facial expressions, period. So emotive! Apparently this strawberry is bittersweet like the last day of summer, and arriving upon this revelation disgusts her a little bit. 

#4 

^^ This is just so cool. She looks like Vicious from Cowboy Bebop. Also, she admittedly doesn't remember the circumstances of this picture coming into being.

#3 

 

^^ This pic makes me feel close to Miranda Cosgrove. Like, literally. 

#2 

^^ Victoria Justice. One of the cutest pictures I've ever seen of anybody. I think of this picture whenever I hear Neil Young's song "Natural Beauty."

#1

 

 ^^ Jennette goes shopping... finds herself face to face with herself. So meta! Ahaha. And I honestly can't even conceive of how darling Jennette looks here. I mean, what the? I can't even handle it. I kind of want to pat her on the head 

More Barn!

My taste for Neil Young music having not been fully satiated by his forty-plus piece discography, I've actually taken to searching CDBaby.com for surrogates. There I found a notably decent Neil tribute called More Barn. I'd love to link you to it, but it has mysteriously disappeared from CDBaby at some point since I purchased it. This is particularly strange as CDBaby usually keeps an album's page up even if all the copies are sold out...

I'm no connoisseur of Neil tributes, but More Barn sure beats the tar out of the mostly lackluster "The Bridge" alt-rock album which boasts such classic acts as Pixies, Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr. The Bridge gives me the feeling that these artists don't give Neil the due he deserves, because they're stuck doing abysmally mediocre renditions of his biggest hits, when a learned alt-rocker would have found much that is worthy of reinvention in the catalog of Don Grungio. Can you imagine a face-tearing Pixies rendition of "Pressure" from Landing on Water, or a liquidly lucid Dinosaur Jr. runthrough of Journey Through the Past? I sure can, but apparently Pixies and Dinosaur Jr. can't.

More Barn doesn't make this mistake. It treats you to songs that are actually interesting to hear, such as, Revolution Blues, Bandit, Running Dry, For the Turnstiles, Sleeps With Angels, Cocaine Eyes and Through My Sails. Overall the renditions are very good. I love the languid, female vocal'd versions of Star of Bethlehem and Needle and the Damage Done, and the electrifying versions of Safeway Cart and Music Arcade. Overall it's a really good and entertaining CD.

My favorite piece by far is a pinched, melancholic version of Thrasher, done by a band called Juniper Tar. It gives me the indelible impression of having been born for one of those drippingly moody, near-slow-motion, oppressively meaningful sex scenes you find in intellectual movies. Just like the one in Watchmen featuring Leonard Cohen's classic Hallelujah.

Zenlike Immaturity: Playlist Edition

The latest issue of Rolling Stone Magazine actually did something I found interesting. They called it the "Playlist Edition" and had a bunch of artists pick their top 10 songs from various entities; a particular artist or scene. Mick Jagger picked his favorite blues, Tom Morello picked his favorite protest songs, Tom Petty picked the best of the British Invasion, Rick Rubin picked his favorite Led Zeppelin songs, stuff like that.

You all know how I love to make lists, so I figured I'd pick "playlist" top 10s for the artist I unquestionably know best, and my latest fling.

Tenzwift's Top Neil Young

Neil's the best, it's as simple as that. Condensing his catalog down to 10 tracks is like choosing one organ out of your body and discarding all the rest. But this list covers the basics very well. It's only problem is that it leans a smidgen too heavily towards the acoustic material. His electric stuff is better in general, but what that means is that the great acoustic songs actually stand out moreso among their lesser brethren, and are therefore easier to pick out. If I could pick a runner up, I'd have gone with Fuckin' Up.

1. Cowgirl in the Sand
-- Crazy Horse debuted a new kind of sound. One that was fierce but plodding, like lightning shown in slow motion.

2. Cortez the Killer
-- Immaculate from the first note to the last, Cortez is a sonic trip, the one that proved the new Crazy Horse was a formidable beast.

3. Out on the Weekend
-- There isn't anything good about Harvest that isn't better in this track than on any other.

4. Tell Me Why
-- Perhaps the most gorgeous folk-pop song Neil ever penned, perfection describes it well.

5. Mellow My Mind
-- When his voice cracks -- that's it. That's the moment when shit gets real. The desperation of yearning for a simpler world overcomes him at that moment.

6. Prime of Life
-- This song comes from another world. It's like 3am personified, it oozes with the mysteries of darkness.

7. Will To Love
-- Chilling, haunting, inspired strains of grim wanderlust. A genuine lo-fi track.

8. Ambulance Blues
-- The existential nihilism of the ditch trilogy gets so bittersweet on this track that it makes me ache.

9. Thrasher
-- The most beautifully poetic and enchanting "diss track" ever crafted, where Neils spins a quiet dissertation on exactly why his pals C, S, & N are soulless corporate blowhards.

10. Slip Away
-- Broken Arrow is Neil's most underrated record, and that's saying something. Slip Away does justice to its name with ether-transversing, shimmering escapades of electric waywardness.


Pop Music

My pop fixation, though newly burgeoned, has been very long in the making. I've come to realize that much of the rock music I love harbors a very pop-like mentality (Petty, Stones, Dylan, even Neil), and that a lot of pop music cultures a very rock-like aesthetic (see below). Nothing could ever replace rock music in the very center of my heart, but occasionally I've got to admit that the pure form of the stuff -- pop, that is -- is sometimes better at wielding those pop music attributes that are present in all forms of music. Even a lot of noise music has hooks!

I once considered pop an unkempt and unseemly perversion, delegated to the outskirts of music. Now I realize that it's the epicenter of music. Not the pinnacle, but an essential influence. Without pop forms, we'd all be listening to pure white noise. Pop is good at certain things and bad at others, just like each genre has its individual attributes. And just like with any style of music, I find the select few artists that move me, and all the rest can go to hell.

1. Hand In My Pocket -- Alanis Morissette
-- This song is the embodiment of youth. It covers the dichotomous turmoil of young life like no other song can.

2. Love Story -- Taylor Swift
-- This song convinced me that pop music was onto some serious shit, some formidable glory. When she goes "oh oh" before that one chorus, that's when I knew Taylor knew what she was doing.

3. Misery Business -- Paramore
-- Paramore has so many good tracks to choose from, but Misery Business is just gorging itself on personality, and it's catchier than the fucking bubonic plague.

4. BAM -- Miranda Cosgrove
-- The crunchy keyboard riff and stark force of the vocals empower me, and make Miranda sound like a much older woman (in a good way, believe it or not...)

5. Torn -- Natalie Imbruglia
-- I like to take the line "You're a little late, and I'm already torn" to imply that she's so vibrantly emotional that all the beautiful angst of the song is caused by her man being like 3 minutes late to get home from work.

6. What's Been Going On -- Amos Lee
-- Few songs mean more to me than this. It tells the story of my private life in 2008/2009, and how once-friends become total strangers.

7. What's Up? -- 4 Non Blondes
-- Oh god this song is just so powerful. The chasm between being an adult and still feeling like a child, epitomized in under 5 minutes.

8. Build Me Up, Buttercup -- The Foundations
-- Ingenious Motown impersonation of epic wonderfulness. The way he holds back the "you" is how I knew this was true art and not just paint-by-numbers.

9. Soak Up the Sun -- Sheryl Crow
-- The quaint, girlish, subdued melody here takes what's good about chorus-driven indie rock and does it better.

10. Because The Night -- Patti Smith
-- A more beautiful song about sex is likely never to exist.

Notable Neil Young & Crazy Horse setlist from 1997

I keep Rust Radio on my twitter feed so I know what shows they play. Certain stuff I'm just not interested in, but when something good comes on you know I'm on that shit like butter on bread. My favorite Neil Young shows are the Crazy Horse (and "Echoes") shows from 1996 and 1997 because they had a unique fluidity to them that makes a lot of the songs sound particularly distinct from their studio counterparts. Though, of course, there are an awful lot of absolutely incredible periods and live shows from Neil and I'll probably discuss a lot of them on this blog eventually.

In any case I was lucky enough to catch a '97 show after the very first song, and here's the setlist (provided by the amazing Sugrmtn.org which chronicles all of Neil Young's setlists), it's from San Fransisco at the Torcadero,

1. Hard Luck Stories
2. I'm The Ocean
3. Razor Love
4. Crime In The City
5. Truth Be Known
6. Piece Of Crap
7. Don't Be Denied
8. Throw Your Hatred Down
9. Downtown
10. Hippie Dream
11. Mellow My Mind
12. Rockin' In The Free World
---
13. Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black)
14. Slip Away
15. Big Time
16. The Losing End
17. Sedan Delivery
18. Throw Your Hatred Down
19. Razor Love
20. Cowgirl In The Sand
21. Prisoners Of Rock 'n' Roll

The main thing notable about this setlist is that it contains songs from all 3 of Neil's electric rock albums from the mid-90s: Sleeps With Angels, Mirror Ball, and Broken Arrow. This is unique in that while Neil was releasing all of these jaw-dropping records in rapid succession, he tended to drop them from the set rather immediately. In other words, '94 shows would include material from Sleeps With Angels, '95 shows would include material from Mirror Ball but not Sleeps With Angels, and '96/'97 shows would usually only contain material from Broken Arrow (of the three).

This has always perturbed me because, although certain songs like Pocahontas, Like a Hurricane and Danger Bird were lifted to their greatest heights in 90s shows, there was so much great material from the 90s, which to me crafts its own place and station. If Neil's 90s material constituted its own unique band, it'd easily be another of my all-time favorites up there with Neil. So my ideal 90s Neil Young set would include vast quantities of material from Neil's mid-90s records, perhaps bookended with classics from Ragged Glory, and an encore from Landing On Water (My choice: Touch The Night, played in a slow electric dirge version).

Other unique attributes of this set include "Hard Luck Stories" and "Hippie Dream," great tracks from my #1 Neil record of the 80s, Landing on Water, as well as a mellow electric version of "Razor Love" which wouldn't see release until Neil's 2000 record Silver & Gold (possibly the best song on that album), and finally "Don't Be Denied" from the illusive Time Fades Away is also featured... can't wait to hear how they play it!

What I really need to do is found out how to get into the Neil Young bootleg trading community. I really need to find out how to do this...

A Past Not Too Distant, For Fear

I enjoy things that creep me out and fill me with wonder. Though an ardent skeptic at heart -- and one who never slips past that line into actually believing any of the wonderful hoaxes and conspiracy theories out there -- it all ties into my desire for there to be something "more" left in the world. Everything real is flawed by virtue of its reality, but we can still dream of amazing, magical things. Of course these aren't good magics I accost here. These are terrifying forces.

Aliens, medical oddities, mythical creatures and cryptozoology, all good. Though my standards would be called into question by some (I tend to find the hokey b-movie creations more convincing than that damnable CGI, which scarcely looks genuine), a sense of realism is important to my fascination.

To that end, you could say my favorite 'setting' for these creatures and anomalies is the relatively recent historical record. Not the 60s or the 50s, but the 1900s, late-1800s... Mankind is as we know them, but the world is a much, much smaller place. The beauty of this time period is that everything seems so much more genuinely plausible. Today the world has been scoured, and the great mysteries have been definitively debunked. The Coelocanth's extraordinary rediscovery was surely made possible by its ocean-home. It's unconscionable that we could find a new prehistoric living creature of any good size living among us on land today. But in 1889, it seems, if not plausible then possible that a 'lost world' could be found, or that a "Rex" dinosaur could be roaming the bowels of Kasai, or that hobbit-sized barbarish homonids could cohabitate with human beings, or that strange creatures had been found, and their skeletons preserved.

Everything seems more plausible in that volatile period of last discovery between the 19th and 20th centuries. Before the world wars. The Aurora Crash somehow seems more real than similar stories that occur in the glow of modern day. Even ghosts and ghouls, which I tend to dismiss more readily than other oddities, seem so much more alive and genuine in the dim magic of recent past. There's just something magical about that time period for me, something that allows my imagination to go wild.

I don't like the trend in recent times for cryptozoologic and oddity-themed programs to attempt a scientific and clinical viewpoint. Shows like MonsterQuest invariably come up with the answer that these creatures don't exist at all, and they never give you anything truly awe-inspiring to view, or much of a good fright. The ghost-themed reality shows are painfully feigned, and they don't even utilize their fakeness as an excuse to get dramatic like the old show Real Scary Stories, whose "kids with a camera" scenes mirror those used in modern shows but always included ten times the amount of action and scares.

The clinical angle just doesn't do it for me. There used to be such a craft put into inventing a scary atmosphere, a powerful mood. When I was a kid you would see tons of incredible documentaries on Discovery Channel following old-world expeditions to find Bigfoot and they always had an incredible feel to them. Today's serial programing can't compare to the likes of Sightings and Beyond Bizzare.

Click the links only if you're ready for a fright! O.O

Nick Versus Disney

Been watching "Hannah Montana Forever" on Youtube all day. I was crazy about this show... riiiight up until I discovered iCarly. And yeah, it's still fuckin' l33t.

I never realized until very recently just how much a connoisseur of kid's television I am. I mean, fuck it, I'm pretty familiar with this shit. I despised Nickelodeon and Disney when I was a kid, but I still watched them 24/7... 'cause it was better than Cartoon Network. And what else was there for me to watch? So I grinned and bore most of the shows that now constitute my generation's favored nostalgia. *shrug* Buncha kooks if you ask me, that shit was decent at best.

As a youth I was fond of sitting in a pitch black room watching Noir... I was obsessed with being grim, because my life WAS grim. And it was a beautiful synergy, just what I needed. But like Neil Young going from 60 to zero, the older I got, the more I was able to relax, and the more I appreciated the kids stuff. Quite obviously... this trend has yet to ebb!

NICK v DISNEY

Overall I'd say Nick brings a much higher level to the game than Disney. Disney's programming frequently relies on slapstick comedy and ultra-typical sitcom fare. Nickelodeon, on the other hand, seems to craft a unique identity for itself and employ genuine absurdist humor that rarely seems too childish or contrived. Comparing Nick to Disney is a lot like comparing Seinfeld to Two and a Half Men, or Futurama to Ugly Americans. I wouldn't mind watching any of those shows, but the vast distinction in quality and craft between them is obvious.

Nickelodeon wins the battle hands down just by its three greatest shows, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Victorious, and iCarly, each of which being some of the finest television I've yet had the pleasure of viewing. However, beyond that, I would definitely say that Disney & Nick are about even. They both have a few watchable cartoons (though nothing to write home a bout), and a handful of decent teen sitcoms.

I might put 90s Disney above 90s Nick. Nick had some decent shows like The Secret World of Alex Mack and Clarissa Explains It All. But at this point, Disney was in a more "adult" mindset, with live action shows featuring cute girls and serious plots. While researching for this post, I reviewed some of my old favorites, and... In an otherwise uninteresting episode of Disney's The Famous Jet Jackson, I stumbled upon this interchange:

Person 1: I was just thinking... you guys ever think about your life as you live it? I was listening to my parents talk the other night. They were remembering what it was like to be our age, all the fun they had, all the things they did. They were talking about it in a way that made me think they hadn't really appreciated it while they were having it.

Person 2: I know what you mean. What if we're all having these amazing lives, and we don't really realize until we look back on it when we're old, like our parents?

Maybe it's not Socrates (or maybe it is). But I'm afraid it may (or may not) touch on how or why I'm a 22 year old man who as of late has spent most of his time watching TV shows aimed at 13 year olds. Youth is a LOT more beautiful in hindsight than it'll ever be the first time around. And as much as older people want to tell you how great it is -- it'll never work. Not because kids are stubborn, but because we need all that life experience between then and now before this shit starts to seem poetic.

Now, in the 2000s, both stations stepped up their game. Disney had a lot of shows I dig such as Phil of the Future, Lizzie McGuire, The Jersey, Life With Derek (acquired programming), and Hannah Montana. Nick, in addition to its almighty triumverate, had great fare with Unfabulous, Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide, and Zoey 101.

Nick wins, but... why choose? You can have 'em both.

Carnosaur

"The Earth was not made for us, it was made for the dinosaurs. It was scaled to their dimensions. Human beings are ants crawling through their livingrooms."

This movie gets monstrously panned. The near-universal consensus appears to be that it's "crap." But I think it's a decidedly decent film. A horror monster movie is allowed to be a little campy... I mean if you apply no-camp standards to zombie movies then you would decimate the genre. Plus there's the incredible novelty of this being Jurassic Park's horror-themed counterpart. The darn thing made over a million and a half dollars at the box office and Amazon.com doesn't even stock it.

It's very low budget, and low tech, which doesn't perturb me at all. Cat Power and GG Allin get panned for their lo-tech immaturity just the same, and I love them, so I guess it's no surprise I wouldn't be off-put by those same qualities in a movie. At least it's not one of those 1930s films that feels like it's from another world. Carnosaur is low-tech but it's still relatable.

The saving grace of the film is its old-world charm, a stark and minimal early 90s film without the overpowering glitz and glamor that overtake anything released in the 00s. I can't remember the last time I've felt something like this, watched a movie with this kind of aesthetic... I don't know if it was two years ago watching Sci-Fi at 4am or if it was 15 years ago watching 90s horror films on Fox at midnight on saturdays but... it was definitely in the middle of the night.

I guess, for me, the selling point is the fact that I find the notion of dinosaurs roaming across the modern landscape to be absolutely irresistible. The dinosaur here is just a puppet, but I find it scary in its starkness. Jurassic Park is all too real, an adventure film. Carnosaur is filled with dimly lit, bleak horror settings and to see the Deinonychus puppet emerge from these is just... it's a glorious sight. It's not thrilling because it looks real, it's thrilling because it taps into a primal, horrifying dream...

Can't wait to read the novel. Apparently John Brosnan (the novel's author), wrote a complete screenplay for the movie but it was rejected. I have half a mind to try and attempt the writing of a post-apocalyptic novel in which Carnosaur's antagonist's goals reach fruition.