If You Liked School, You’ll Love Work

Posted on 08/27/2010 by J. Endress

This statement does not bode well for most.

I’m an avowed Welsh fan. I’ve read almost all of his stuff, and if you pair that my penchant for, well, basically, novels about drifters and fuck-ups, I would say I’m a pretty good judge of his abilities. That being said, while his star certainly has not reached its apogee, he is taking his sweet old time getting there. If You Liked School, You’ll Love Work is a collection of literary toys. While his first collection, The Acid House challenged, terrified and reviled, the short stories in this collection will likely leave you with a noncommittal shrug. Not to say it isn’t a fun collection, but it is a collection of toys. Not quite the stuff you would put on the mantelpiece. If you’re looking for something akin to the slender perfection of “A Perfect Day For Bananafish” or “Hills Like White Elephants”, you won’t find it here. Welsh came close to that mark years ago with his cerebral Acid.

“Rattlesnakes”, the first entry, is a page out of Palahniuk’s laziest gross-out writings. The characterization is just as bland as the character cliches employed. The tension builds with all the subtlety of a magnesium flare, and Welsh’s love of loose-string and ambiguous endings leaves an ashy taste in your mouth.

“If You Liked School, You’ll Love Work”, the titular entry, is a fairly lighthearted snippet, entertaining but not elevating. It feels more like a character exercise, or a left-over scrap from one of Welsh’s more developed works. All the standards of Scottish wise-guys are present- constant hunting for sex, dodging of responsibility and acting irrationally (and not only when completely shitfaced). Still, it’s a bit of a nostalgiac joy to see the Scottish dialect in print again.

“The DOGS of Lincoln Park” was built around a few clumsy and undeveloped plot twists, and it’s not challenge to figure out how to feel about the protagonist, an upper-crusty Manhattanite with little to no understanding of the intricacies (or simplicities). It was as irritating to read at times as it would be actually knowing such a character, but then, that is likely the driving point.

“Miss Arizona” was almost there. It was almost at that, sinister, paranoia-inducing level, but it sadly fizzles, due to a lack of development in the other characters and really poor pacing. The end will make you want to throw the book across the room, and it’s a good one. But Welsh could have taken a few notes from old school Gothic, rather than trying to reinvent it with a somewhat pork-laden fist.

“Kingdom of Fife”. How do I feel about a story whose protagonist bears my namesake and is a pervert and a drunken asshole? Pretty good, actually. If anyone can redeem the bottom of the barrel, it’s Welsh. Any doubters need to pick up Marabou Stork Nightmares and marinate on exactly how much we, as individuals, as a culture, judge people, and what that can do to people. Not that this is a preachy, inherent goodness of humanity trip- Welsh would never do that. What he does so masterfully is create convincing characters in need of a second chance, then he almost psychically persuades the reader that the character deserves that chance. Welsh goads you into rooting for people you would rather spit on at first glance. For as much as I enjoyed the story, however, it felt, like much of the collection, undercooked. I wanted more, and more could have been done with this. Hopefully, Skag, a full novel in the works, will give me the drug I crave.

This book is more for the Welsh monks rather than novices, and you should ignore anything on the cover of the book (a silly lesson we all seem to have to re-learn periodically), because, yeah, it will get you pumped up for a Welsh Odyssey, but this ain’t it. If you’ve never read Welsh, pick up Crime or, of course, Trainspotting, and come back later. You might be disappointed when you get to School, but you’ll love the work it took to get there.

Grade: C+

Review of “Why We Hate Us”

Posted on 06/28/2010 by J. Endress

I dunno, Boomers. You tell me, I'm asking you.

Cynicism is healthy, at least to a degree. I think what kept me marginally sane throughout high school and the ID crises of college was an ever-crooked left eyebrow. The lyrics to the Dandy Warhols’ “Cool Scene” come to mind:

Well I’m just not making your scene
and I really don’t feel like I need
I really don’t mean that it’s cool
didn’t really wanna be in high school

I don’t mean to give the impression that cynicism is a thing a grew out of after college- more like my gaze became a good bit wider. Believe it or not, I’m an optimist, and that’s why this book on the decline of community and assumed societal values struck me as so much plaintive bitching, especially coming from a Boomer. I mean, really. Why the fuck are you bitching? This society evolved to present on your myopic, self-aggrandizing watch.

My grandmother is the one who bought me the book, based on some sort of Greatest Generation cultural buyers’ remorse- “Here, Jason, this stuff was never our problem, we didn’t have the internet, we had nothing to do with it. You fix it.” Merry Christmas. The basic gripe I have with the Greatest Generation and the Boomers it that it’s so easy to use the internet and what some idiot kids listen to or wear as a meter of society’s evils, but only if you forget who pays the t-shirt press, who signs the raunchy, wannabe be gangstas to record contracts, and yeah, who designed, then shoved (Welcome to AOL!), the internet down our collective throat.

If this book is a call-to-arms, it’s the most castrated, armchair-ridden and self-pitying one I have ever read. As soon as all you old fuckers apologize to my generation (currently reaping/choking on what you morons sewed), maybe I’ll give your whining some credibility. Kids are wearing “Slut” t-shirts? How’d they get the money, and how did they not get values?

The book does set up a good framework explaining how we Americans lost the values, but this is polishing the brass on the Titanic. Entertaining and helpful for conversation, but you’ve got more important stuff to do.

I think what’s more important is why this book doesn’t speak to me. All of the bullet points on the lack of church attendance and the decline of bowling leagues mean nothing to me. Yeah, it’s sad that people are so lazy they’d deprive themselves of the finer things in life (like bowling) in favor of sitting in front of the television, but what are you, personally, gonna do about it? Nothing. Who’s gonna read this book without having some of the same perceptions of society as the author? My guess is the choir members.

For my own part, I’ve got my own traditions, my own dart league, and a quiet watering hole (it’s a dive) down the street where I meet new people and friends alike on common ground. On Election Day, for example, we cook a big breakfast and march down en masse to the polling station. A lot of people in my generation already had your book written for you, but instead of preaching to the choir, they went off and found their own community. Obviously the older generations blew their chances, but we’re still young enough to have chances to blow.

To paraphrase Kurt Vonnegut (a big reason I ended up this way), we’re put on this earth to fart around- forget efficiency. It’s totally cool to go to the postal office for a single stamp. If you get too wrapped in defining yourself, your generation, or whatever, you won’t have a lick of time to just chill and enjoy what you already have. I’ve got a dart league game tomorrow, and I can guarantee the evils of society (and this book) couldn’t be further from my mind. I might hate, but I also congratulate, and as long as you can do that, you’re all good.

Grade: A Gentleman’s C. Only because those don’t exist anymore, and it’s a pretty useful book if you didn’t already understand the concept.

Giant Drag-Swan Song EP

Posted on 03/01/2010 by J. Endress

This picture decidedly confuses my crush.

Despite being a near-instant darling of the indie-rock scene, obtaining residencies with radio stations, and generally hitting every big festival ever, Giant Drag sort of curled up and went away, right when it seemed like it would be a good time for another release.

Annie Hardy, armed with a darkly suggestive album cover and sometimes-bandmate Micah Calabrese, has finally dropped something new for the masses, who have likely forgotten they ever loved Giant Drag. I mean, I pretty much forgot about them. It’s been four years since Hearts and Unicorns.

Hopefully this release is not truly as advertised, because Giant Drag is pretty awesome, and Swan Song is a solid reminder of that. Hardy’s lyrical skill and humor is in full force, even on the slightly annoying singer/songwriter “Heart Carl”. Get it? Hardy’s weirder quirks are present as well, with “White Baby”, a song about…having babies. White ones.

The dark, violent little heart of the album is on the ambivalent yet defiant ”Stuff to Live For”, which is the best display of everything Giant Drag does right, and probably their best track yet.

While a four-song EP is more like table scraps than the full release we’ve all been waiting on (it’s in the works, according to Hardy), it’s definitely better than nothing. Hopefully this is just the appetizer for a main course in the near future, and not a true swan song.

Grade: B-

St. Vincent @ Diesel 2-21-10

Posted on 02/26/2010 by J. Endress

I feel a bit like a piece of old farm equipment when I admit that I discovered St. Vincent through an NPR special. You know, rather than one of my cool friends or my hip elder sibling. The sad fact is, my friends are not that cool (which is why they never go to shows with me) and my siblings, although lovable in their own right, are neither hip nor elder. So I count myself lucky that I am enough of a pretentious ass to listen to NPR, if only for the fact that I found out about Benji Hughes and St. Vincent through it, among others.

I had planned on going to the show for a long while, since shows here in Pittsburgh are a bit like the mirage of an oasis in the desert, always just over the next erg. Or month. Or, for the most part, never.

I had my doubts about Diesel, because I had been there before, ostensibly to dance, but that effort ended up as a bitch session about the South Side in general, and bad DJs at large. I was pleasantly surprised; the management has figured out how to turn a profit with what must have been a dead night by bringing national acts in for early evening, all-ages shows. Thankfully, the upstairs was blocked off to the scabby teens. Rather than jostle for position at the railing overlooking the first floor, the lady and I relaxed on the mostly empty couches and enjoyed the music.

The opener, Wildbirds and Peacedrums, was a borderline jam band of two; a very proficient drummer and a lady with a magnificent set of pipes. A little too much warbling and drum-noodling at times, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the actual album was better.

After the usual interminable wait and another gin and tonic, St. Vincent came on, opening a solid set with “Laughing with a Mouthful of Blood”. I had watched some live performances a few days earlier on the interwebs, and I was not disappointed. Despite the general lack of vocal effects and looping (there was a bit), Annie Clark’s vocals didn’t fail to rise to the occasion, proving all the production tricks in the book can’t really improve upon an angelic voice like hers. Where the studio tracks sometimes sound restrained and artificial, even contrived at times, the live band gave Ms. Clark’s computer-wrought symphonies the Lazarus treatment.

The noisy fury of “Marrow”‘s breakdown was especially intense, and the alchemy of improvisation turned some of the dull moments on the studio tracks into gold. Most of the set was from Actor, but they did manage to hit a couple tracks from Marry Me, including the Ophelia-tinged hopelessness of “Paris is Burning”.

The highlight of the show was a slow snowfall treatment of Nico’s “These Days”, done as a solo by Clark. It totally made up for her lead-in to the song, which somehow tied Ice Cube’s “Today Was a Good Day” to the song. You know, if it were sung thirty years prior, by a “morbidly depressed” woman. Artists have funny ways of stringing things together. With the icy hell we’ve come to expect outside for the last few weeks, taking the bounce out of a classic felt like just the right dose of just the right medicine.

I didn’t time it, but the set was around 45 minutes, maybe closer to an hour, which is a little lame. To boot, there was no encore, which is total bullshit. If Pittsburgh gives you love, throw a bone. Judging by the fans’ reaction on last.fm to Diesel, a lot of people, myself included, swallowed our tongues just to be there. The venue didn’t even stay open past 10:30, cutting the bar off and hustling people out around 10:15.

On the whole, for 16 bucks it was a little under par. But if an all-ages show is the only way we can get any attention from national acts, I guess I’ll be at Diesel the next time someone decent comes around. I guess.

Grade: B

District 9: A Review

Posted on 08/27/2009 by J. Endress

District 9 Poster On paper, I’m easily impressed by movies. If there’s checkmarks for aliens, explosions, and sinister corporations and/or governments, I’m usually in. I was raised on sci-fi movies, I am an unapologetic Star Trek fan, I fret about the potentiality of SkyNet and I still watch TRON (and was all kinds of jolly to see the trailer for the sequel). I am the perverbial fish in the demographic barrel Hollywood suits love to shoot at a couple times a year.

True enough to Mr. Barnum’s dictum, there is a (sad fanboy) sucker born every minute. Unfortunately, when you actually pay money for shitheaps like Alien Versus Predator, you’re only encouraging George Lucas to milk Star Whores harder. I saw the preview for District 9 right before Terminator: Salvation locked my childhood in the basement for several hours and proceeded to abuse it (as if T:3 wasn’t bad enough). The logic that followed after I had expunged my rage in the parking lot was that anything had to be better than that: “Wait, that one trailer…District something…It’s got aliens, explosions, shit, what the hell? I love that stuff! I’ll be back.”

Niell Blomkamp’s film opens up with mock interviews, post-shit hitting the fan, letting you know that protagonist Wikus van de Merwe (Sharlto Copley) had gotten into some shit, has disappeared, and that the people of Johannesburg hate the aliens living in the refugee camp/shanty town of District 9.

Good. Great. Aliens look believable (though I wish our imagination could go beyond the whole bi-pedal thing), sound cool, and then here’s Wikus, being filmed for a documentary, fumbling with new-found authority as the head toadie for MNU’s (MultiNational United) forced eviction of the aliens into a concentration camp well outside of the city limits.

Then Wikus gets into some shit. In the span of a few hours, he goes from a naive, loyal MNU stooge to guinea pig to a fugitive. There are explosions, lots of explosions, and the weapons in the movie are a sendup of every shooter since Doom. I am beginning to think that the R rating is the only safe way to watch movies anymore.

A lot of the footage is from the documentary, security cameras and the like, mixed in with some very striking shots of the arid squalor of District 9. Then there’s the nigh-seamless special effects. It was a treat to not have my intelligence insulted by hyper-real effects and a hyperbolic sis-boom-pow.

Plot, you ask? In full force, made all the more believable since not only are the actors all unheard of South Africans, but they’re damn good. From Wikus to the chillingly callous MNU executives to the trigger-happy head of MNU security, it’s all awful close to the mark, especially if you’re at all familiar with humanity’s history of medical research on itself, for one. It’s not too hard to concieve how blind of an eye would be turned towards the plight of non-humans.

The film is based on a short called “Alive In Joburg“, a six-minute short by the same director, which was apparently good enough for a studio to throw him a paltry 30 million for the best science fiction movie I’ve seen in awhile. It even trumps J.J. Abram’s Star Trek re-boot, suck it.

While District 9 is a far cry from the gentle whimsies of the sci-fi films from my youth, I’m a big boy now, and I’ll take my screaming moral implications with gratiutous gibbage and Nigerian warlords.

Grade: A

The Decemberists: Live! The Other Night! Sold Out!

Posted on 08/17/2009 by J. Endress

It finally happened. I finally made it to a show. I haven’t been to one since, unless I am mistaken, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! What did I miss in the meantime? The Dears. And, oh, just Autolux. Just the Fiery Furnaces. Haven’t seen a local show since the Jenn Gooch CD release, unless you count bartending for the Beagle Brothers CD release show in June. Which I do. Not. As much as I love that album.

I’ve been a bit jaded about music as a whole, at least until a few weeks ago, when I discovered the Army behind Black Mountain. Ironically enough, I’d been pretty jaded about everything lately. I was about a fingernail clipping away from not giving a damn about a ticket I got in April. I mean, I was just hoping for a couple of my favorite songs from a band that put out one of the worst EPs I had ever heard. I hadn’t even bothered with the Hazards of Love, which kind of sounds like something the Arcade Fire would come up with.

I couldn’t think of a more perect mindset to go into a show with. My mind was blasted, blown and undone, as only the head of an apathetic can be.

First of, Heartless Bastards opened, and I was delighted to discover that they could be secret members of the Black Mountain Army, if their sound is any indication. It was a happy coincidence, and I was invested as soon as Erika Wennerstrom let those PJ Harvey-esque pipes soar. My favorite music will and always be the stuff you can let slip like the dogs of war in a bar that seems a little too sleepy for your tastes, and my fellow Ohians are now a part of that repetoire.

So that brings us back to the Decemberists. I had been content to give them The Crane Wife for a shark jump, especially after hearing “Valerie Plame” too many damn times. It took about ten minutes into their set, but then I figured it out- they were playing Hazards of Love in its entirety, which accounted for the two additional players upon the stage. So I settled in, and let the epic take me. I’m only just now taking my first real lesson to the album itself, nothing will ever compare to seeing and feeling it live.

While Wife had its threads and themes, the Decemberists had not really visited the realm of heavy consistent concept, at least in terms of making one long opera (Yes, I know they put The Tain (that is on The Tain) to music, but did you?).

The reviews are already out on the album, I know. It’s nothing like any other Decemberist album; comparing it as such is an insult to its sheer audacity and derring-do. It’s a landscape with oases and deserts, Cliffs of Insanity and blissful plains of purple buffalo, cracked crystals and hideous Nothings. It gallops, it stomps, it throws fits, its bones rattle to sublime dust. It’s a leprous healer with an axe to grind, because that chapel ain’t gonna build itself.

It’s an A.

Some bands manage to get to the part in the story where they can throw together a decent set, communicate on that higher level, and give the audience the best night they’ll ever have until they have it again. Other bands get past that part, where they so fully understand what the music is, and that they have less and less to do with the music the higher the audience is lifted; they simply let what they have crafted work for them. The Decemberists made it look easier than a dream.

As if that weren’t enough, they had a second set, something more along the lines of that former band, the one that does what they do with enthusiasm, but might never stride through the cloud deck like the giants do.

So we heard “July, July!”, my all-time favorite song of theirs, which was my only hope for the concert. You can see why I was floored by the experience. They also played “Shankill Butchers”, my second favorite song. I had heard in an interview that Meloy was a drama student, and that it came out in thier shows, so I was waiting a little on that, too. They re-enacted the Battle of Fort Pitt amidst the audience with a less than scrupulous or sensical account of history, halfway through “A Cautionary Tale”. Then got right back onto the stage for the second half with nary a beat missed.

With the song’s final admonition, they left the stage. I expected an encore, given the band’s flair for the dramatic, but was shocked and rocked by what they delivered:

Sadly, that’s the best of the videos. But you get the point.

I would be lying if I said the show didn’t provide an incredibly beautiful counterpoint to what my life is doing down here on the ground. As it goes with all inspiration, it tends to find you, slap you silly and get you imagining the day your head reaches above the clouds. Working towards it is another matter, but then that’s why we have heroes who risk, well, the hazards of love.

Grade:

The Decemberists at the Byham Theater, August 14, 2009: A+

The Decemberists: The Hazards of Love: A

(It’s a difference of seeing a play and reading it)

A Dose of Snobbery

Posted on 02/26/2009 by J. Endress

Perusing Google Reader today led to this little gem from Magnet, my snobby-indie-as-fuck-asshole’s magazine of choice. Dude, they are so hip that they only publish three times a year. Take that, Pitchfork, you ‘print is dead’ dilettantes.

The article is Corey duBrowa’s take on the five most overrated and five most underrated Radiohead songs of all time! He’s known for, I guess, a 1,700 word review of Hail to The Thief, which is about 1,700 more words than I need to read about that self-indulgent ode to Hunter S. Thompson’s Kingdom of Fear.

To be fair, he and I agree, with the strange exception of “I Will”, that the album is better left to listening to everything they did before instead.

Which brings us to his list of the overblown. Again, I agree. Almost completely. Name any “hit” Radiohead song, and I’ll probably tell you it’s a gust of hot alternarock air. But while “Electioneering” is a bit of an anachronism within Ok Computer, it presages the full brunt of Bush-era insecurities several years beforehand. So, given the fact that that album is so “ahead of its time”, let’s put it into a total context and agree that “Electioneering” is a badass rock song which also happens to epitomize the callow irony that so many intellectuals hide behind in the face of Politics as Usual.

Okay, onto the most underrated. I’ll get to the My Iron Lung EP slections later.

I guess I can hang with “Blow Out”, but I’m tempted to say it’s a contrarian sort of logic that points one to find one of the only redeemable tracks on Pablo Honey, an otherwise forgettable album, especially in light of the rest of the catalogue.

Kid A? Seriously? Two of the tracks made it onto the “Vanilla Sky” soundtrack. That album, by all accounts, should have never sold so well, not because it isn’t genius, but because (especially at that time) it’s fairly unlistenable for the unwashed masses. Because we all know not enough people have proclaimed “genius!” enough times.

We get it, and it’s not underrated. It might well be overrated and I never want to see Tom Cruise paired with a Radiohead song ever again.

The rest of his list seems purposefully obscure. That’s right, kiddies. Big brother is gonna tell you where it’s at with tracks you’ve never heard, but should.

Except that, yeah, you should hear them, if only to realize there are reasons they’re obscure. And if you want obscure Radiohead cuts, there’s better songs.

I’ll see “Meeting In the Aisles” with “Maquiladora”, because I’d rather rock with the “beautiful kids and their beautiful troubles” than stand around looking thoughtful, deal with the love of the My Iron Lung EP with a “Bwuh?” and politely suggest “Cuttooth”, “Trans-Atlantic Drawl”, and above all else, “A Reminder“.

Taken: A Review

Posted on 02/01/2009 by J. Endress

It’s been ages since I made it to the theater, but this last Saturday I managed to find a partner in crime. She had gotten us as far as “Movie”, so it was up to me to roll the dice and risk wasting 10 bucks.

This time I chose wisely; “Taken” might not have been worth ten bucks, but it was certainly worth my time. The money, you can always get that back. But your brain will never forgive you for introducing the latest Hollywood shitheap into your domepiece. I don’t regret seeing “Taken” for a second, though I’d love to see the international rated R version.

“Taken” started out with a really tired exposition.

Caution: I am about to spoil the first half-hour of the movie. Because it’s not that good.

Yes, you’ve seen this before. A film about a government agent, with a past (duh-duhn)! Man (Liam Neeson) sacrifices family for career, man sacrifices career to do good by his family. His ex-wife is sort of a bitch, imagine. It even had a very contrived guys’ night to grill with the old espionage buddies, you know, kicking back, talking about that one time in Beirut. They even try and convince their retired buddy to get back in the game, imagine. He does a freelance security gig with them the next day, protecting some diva, totally saves her life and beats someone’s ass.

Then the real movie starts. Against dad’s better judgement, his daughter goes on a trip to follow U2 (O ye Gods, how I loathe Bono!) around Europe. She and her friend are then kidnapped by a Serbian sex-slave ring.

Very well choreographed beatdowns ensure. Liam Neeson kills everyone. Everyone. His solo investigation goes through a number of dead-ends while he tries to find his daughter, and he calmly extracts information out of the last survivor of each particular massacre. There’s a great monologue in there about the benefits of good old fashioned American torture.

The main drawback is your own common sense. You know that Hollywood would never risk being so bold as to give audiences an unhappy ending, so you know that everything is going to be alright in the end, it’s just a matter of how many bodies a righteous-psychopath Neeson stacks up.

The move really was a showcase of how frightening Liam Neeson can be; they should re-shoot “The Phantom Menace” and let Neeson torture Darth Maul, or calmly slice off Watto’s wings and do away with the giant waste of time the podrace scene was.

I don’t have much to say about “Taken”, because there’s not much to it. It’s conservatively shot, the chase scenes are teriffic, there’s about 8,764 great fight scenes and I would like to see how it stacks up to “Braveheart” for sheer human damage. The other big plus is that it’s not a three-hour slog- it runs crisply and the exposition nothwithstanding, every scene keeps your eyelids peeled back.

While predictable action movies are rarely my thing, the good ones are a great guilty pleasure. Sure, I’ve seen it. Sure, I know he saves his daughter in the end (and if you call that a spoiler, you’re too dumb for this blog. GTFO), but I gotta see it at least once again for the body-count. It’s perfect fodder for a dudes’ night drinking game. Besides, you’ll need someone around to high-five whenever Neeson kills yet another sleazy gangster, brah.

Grade: B

Your Weekly Uncommon Sense

Posted on 01/24/2009 by J. Endress

Dear Uncommon Sense:

My boyfriend and I broke up a month ago, but he really didn’t handle it well. He was alright at first, but occasional friendly calls turned into miserable drunken voicemails pretty quick, along with daily emails. While there’s nothing I like more than a dose of abuse waiting for me in the morning, I’m sick of it and a little freaked out. What should I do to end this?

Yours,

Scared and Single

Well, SS, barring moving and completely fucking off, there’s not too much you can do re-actively for this sort of idle harassment. Proactive is another matter, and it’s the only sensible thing to be done. Letting the voicemail take care of the dirty work is top priority-an old trick used by many a harried woman is to let your voicemail box fill up, thus depriving the tormentor of a venue. As far as the email goes, unless you want to wade into a neverending tit for tat war that will only make you feel like shit, either immediately delete or ignore the emails. Block them if you feel it necessary. The catch with all things internet is to not get petty. If he decides to de-friend you on the Facespace, Livebook or Twatter, so be it. That just means he can’t spy on you through those channels. Make sure your privacy settings reflect that if the thought of him agonizing over your Relationship Status, pictures or blogs worries you.

The bottom line is to give the coldest shoulder possible. Eventually, the dude will pull his ass out of the sewers of self-loathing and might even apologize. Unfortunately, the only endgame is a waiting game. Go out, celebrate your freedom, trash the fucker with you friends and bat your eyes at the bearded kid moping at the bar. When you fill your head up with activity, you don’t leave much room for thoughts of the ex; what used to be a worry now becomes a minor annoyance and an endless supply of punchlines. Of course, the ex might be a total psycho and you’re due for the slaughterhouse. It never hurts to change the locks. Just remember, this is but one of the risks of enjoying the nightmare that is dating.

To all the dudes who were, are and will be that guy: Yes, you’ve crossed the line. Yes, it happens. Yes, you should apologize, but only when you mean it, and after you’ve filled your own head with something new. Yes, alcohol, your current state and a phone or computer do not mix. Sleep it off. In a few weeks or months when you wake up, you’ll feel right as rain, swearing never to drink react that hard again.

How about your problems? Email askuncommonsense at gmail dot com for your prescription.

Review: Always the Bridesmaid Singles

Posted on 01/23/2009 by J. Endress

decemberists-valerie-plame I’m having a crisis of confidence in my social stratum. There’s something wrong with the whole indie fucktard demographic. Are we really so desperate? Are we really so eager to rush headlong towards the record store for the latest CSS record, to make excuses for overblown heaps of mediocrity like Interpol’s second disc, to recognize bands more for the trademark and not talent?

Of course we are. The real joy of straddling the 90′s and the oughties is that I am fully aware that, well, we turned out to be just as susceptible in 1997 as we were in 2007, and stop playing that MIA record, it’s kinda obnoxious. Wanna borrow my old KOrN records?

So it wasn’t surprising to my meta-self that when I got wind of a new series of Decemberists’ joints, I was pretty stoked. O me. So I put it on. At first I thought I was listening to “16 Military Wives”- “Valerie Plame” is cut from the same irritating cloth, right down to the progression. I like my politically aware songs with a slice of de la Rocha or at least a bit of Manics, thanks.

Le sigh. Okay, fine. EPs are rarely heavy-hitting. I can deal. Then “Valerie” aped “Hey Jude” in its drawn-out closing. Jesus H. The next two songs didn’t grate me as much as pista uno, but they’ll never get stuck in my craw the same way “July, July” or “Shankill Butchers” do. By the end of “O New England” I was already lamenting the fact that the Decemberists, after four LPs, A smattering of EPs, including an adaptation of the Tain (of all things) was risking their long-standing indie-darling status. Then it got worse.

Can we please leave the dead horse alone? While I don’t mind the occasional cover, a Velvet Underground cover, especially of a yawn song like “I’m Sticking With You” is too much for me to take. Unimaginative, lackluster covers are for over-the-hill farts and powerpunk bands singing the Nerverending Story theme. Shut it off.

It was appropriate then that the banjo-laced “Record Year” followed; a creepy orchestral meditation on the impermanence of our culture: “In the annals of the Empire, did it ever look so gray?”

Not until this farce, Meloy.

“Raincoat Song”, the final blast of the series, relies on the Decemberists’ most consistent strength- oh I love those memorable choruses!

But they’re all an invite to sing along, and who really gives a shit anymore? I was grateful the song was a short ditty, so I could get back to the routine of irony, suspicion, and quiet optimism that marks our tribe, the halls of our idols a bit dimmer.

Until of course, the Decemberists release Hazards of Love in late March. Or maybe Björk’s new joint (remember her?)- I hear her new album will take three years to record (true) and is to be comprised entirely of her clipping her toenails and warbling like a drunken bird of paradise (Seriously, I wish that weren’t likely true. Oh Homogenic, I miss you.).

We’ll all be there on that fateful Tuesday, won’t we.

Grade: D-

Crime: A Review

Posted on 01/17/2009 by J. Endress

Crime-cover Certain authors, like high-profile celebrities, can engender an avid cult following. While thousands of books are published with every passing year, only a select few authors manage to gather behind them an audience that will suck up every last literary crumb with all the devotion of a starving canine.

That being said, I’ve never been one to get hopelessly fanboyesque about much of anything, although authors like Irvine Welsh put that to the test. So it’s not without a modicum of disappointment that I now state that Crime, comparatively, is not top shelf. For Welsh anyway.

Whenever I give my family flak for Harry Potter or Twilight, they shoot back across my skyward nose that not everything has to be a headtrip. So it was with a bit of perverse glee that I popped out Crime on a holiday visit, informing my family that is my light reading. Reactions ranged from a vague curiosity to I’m-washing-my-hands disgust. But there’s something in that- while I expect gold from my unwitting literary instructors, not every lesson is going to keep you riveted.

Crime did keep me riveted, but as the plot progressed, it was increasingly because the story is somewhat contrived, as Welsh himself admitted in a postscript. It’s actually very contrived, but saved by the two main characters’ resounding believability. Welsh is a master of character, it’s just that the framework he builds around them isn’t always free of OSHA violations.

On the one hand, for a crime thriller, it’s got some quality twists with unchallenging secondary characters. Welsh keeps you in the dark about what the book is even really about until you’re pretty well into it. It was also a bit of a cheap thrill to have Welsh turn his skills with replicating dialect onto American English. On the other hand, it is Welsh, the writer who was able to give every single character in Trainspotting life, even the ones with no dialogue. Beyond the two main characters, the rest of the cast feels stale and convenient; there’s not much depth in this casual swimming pool. For the vehicle of crime novel, it works, but it will certainly ring awkwardly hollow for the discriminating Welsh reader.

For the fanboys, shit, they’ll love it. But those same people “just can’t decide” which book is their favorite and will harangue you for seeing the Danny Boyle film before reading the novel that made Welsh into a literary rockstar.

Maybe the point is I should expect Harry Potters instead of Hobbits- you can’t always expect home runs. But then again, maybe I should loosen up and enjoy a decent light read. Crime was precisely that.