And now I present to you a first in the history of Twenty Pounds of Headlines: a work of fiction. But first, some back story.

When I was a senior at Temple University in 2003, I participated in several manifestations of something called Guaranteed Overnight Theatre (GOT), which were produced by the (now defunct) Brick Playhouse in Philadelphia. The conceit went something like this: On one particular Friday night every month month, the playhouse invited local writers, actors, and directors to participate in an interesting experiment. Drawing randomly from a hat, teams of two actors, one writer, and one director were formed to create a short, one-act play in 24 hours. To make it even more interesting, the writer had to draw three different random cards that contained a prop, a phrase, and (if I recall correctly) a theme, all of which had to be included in the play.

I signed up as a writer for at least four of these GOTs, and the experience was always exceedingly interesting. After our Friday night meeting, I would retire to my studio apartment at 19th and Spring Garden to compose a cohesive and (hopefully) entertaining play that had to be delivered to my director by 9 a.m. the following morning. These exercises in severe deadline writing were far more challenging than I thought they’d be, always keeping me up for the duration of the evening, only completing a manuscript after many pots of coffee had been brewed, the sun had evolved from glow to radiation, and the morning traffic crawled out onto the city’s sleepy streets. Only then was I free to rest, as the director and two actors rehearsed all day before bringing the play to stage around 8 p.m.

Did I produce anything genius? Certainly not. But the task was formative in my evolution as a writer, brutally stripping away the temptation to dally or procrastinate, and instead focussing my energy on the composition of swift, compelling narratives.

So why post this particular play? Not—to be sure—because it was my best, but because it deals with a topic close to my heart these days: Turning 30.

I stumbled upon The Drag of Dorian last week while going through some old files for a colleague who was interested in my catalogue of fiction. And while I didn’t send him this one, I was struck by my 22-year-old self”s impressions of 30 reflected here. Why I chose to make 30 the presiding theme of this play I can’t recall (perhaps I drew a card with that number written on it). Either way, it was entertaining for me to read, which I hope it is for you as well. And so, submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society, I give you The Drag of Dorian:

The Drag of Dorian

By

Nick DiUlio

The Players:

Dorian Seymour—The quiet one.  Shy with a hidden sense of soothing simplicity.  Dorian is on the verge of his thirtieth birthday.

Brison Stoltz—Younger and more energetic.  Brison’s theories drive the duo.  His own sense of self-mythology is all too apparent.

INT. — BACK STAGE OF THEATRE — NIGHT

We see DORIAN SEYMOUR standing on one foot in the center of the stage.  He wears an old revolutionary war hat and has his hands in the position of firing a rifle.  As he stands motionless, BRISON STOLTZ comes from upstage in a hurry.

BRISON: All right.  We’re on in twenty minutes.  You ready?

Dorian nods.  Brison begins to pace back and forth behind him.  In his hands, Brison holds a copy of Hemmingway’s FAREWELL TO ARMS.  He clears his throat and begins to recite from the book.  As he does so, Dorian looks distracted, continually looking at his watch and, in doing so, loosing his balance.

BRI:  “We had a fine life.  We lived through the months of January and February and the winter was very fine and we were very happy.  There had been short thaws when the wind blew warm and the snow softened and the air felt like spring, but always the clear hard cold had come again and the winter had returned…Outside we could hear the rain. (addressing Dorian but still reciting from the book) ‘Do you think we ought to move into town?’” (Dorian does not respond.  Brison takes the book and smacks Dorian over the head with it. Dorian’s attention is gained.)

DORIAN:  What?

BRI:  Your cue?

DOR: Oh right.  (he tries to regain focus and gets into his second position, bending over completely.  He looks at his watch again.)

BRI: No no no.  Jesus.  That’s the ninth position, not the second. (Dorian vacantly stares up at Brison, unsure of what he is supposed to do.) You don’t remember the second position do you? (Brison walks over to Dorian. He lies down on his back on the floor while Dorian watches and tries to follow his lead.  Brison begins to thrust his pelvis up in the air continually.)  Remember? Thrust and thrust and thrust!  Make love to the muse of the sky…and all that crap. (Dorian feebly begins to thrust, a poor imitation of Brison’s instructions.  Brison accepts it however and gets back up, book in hand.  He starts to pace again and reads from the book.) Ok, here we go…“‘Do you think we ought to move into town?’”

DOR:  (dryly) “‘What do you think?’” (the thrusting gets weaker and weaker)

BRI:  “‘If the winter is over and the rain keeps up it won’t be fun up here.  How long is it before young Catherine?’” (Brison notices that Dorian’s thrusting has completely stopped and all he is doing is lying on the floor, looking at his watch.  Brison temperamentally throws the book on the ground and lies down next to Dorian.  Brison props his hand behind Dorian’s back and forces him to continue thrusting.  The two of them thrust and thrust, Dorian less interested than Brison.)  Now is this so difficult?

DOR:  I’m sorry.  I’m having issues…personal issues.

BRI:  Issues?  Issues?  How’s this for an issue?  Unless you do it like this, you are going to look ridiculous. (No matter how much he tries, Brison cannot seem to get Dorian excited about the routine.  He gives up.)  Ok, how bout we try a different one. (Brison gets up, taking Dorian’s hat and replacing it with a blue fisherman’s cap.  Dorian stays on the floor as Brison sifts through a pile of books and CDs.) Something with a little more…intellectual eroticism. (He returns to Dorian with a copy of THE STRANGER and a CD he puts in the small player by their side.)  Look, if you’re not into this it’s going to look like we don’t know what we’re doing.  And we don’t want that.  Trust me, there are plenty sweet young pseudo intellectual girls out there who would rather be home listening to Belle and Sebastian right now, but we need to do our part to make sure they don’t regret coming out tonight.  We need to make them want us.  And post-modern chicks hate superfluous idling.  So just clear your mind of whatever you’ve got bouncing around in that vacant, dusty attic of a brain and…get a little existential for Christ’s sake.

Dorian puts on the hat and stands up. Brison sits in front of him Indian style on the floor.  Brison hits play on the CD player.  Beck’s LOSER comes on.  Brison holds up THE STRANGER on a beat.  Dorian stands still until the rhythm starts in full swing.  When it does, Dorian starts to shimmy back and forth like a third rate stripper.  Brison begins reading from THE STRANGER.

BRI: “Then, I don’t know why, but something inside me snapped.  I started yelling at the top of my lungs, and I insulted him and told him not to waste his prayers on me.”  (The music continues as Dorian shimmies and shakes, now and then looking down at his watch.  Brison seems to be waiting for yet another missed cue by Dorian.  He waits and waits, finally turning off the music out of frustration.  Dorian does not seem to notice that the music has stopped and continues with the ridiculous dance.  Brison just sits on the ground, a matter-of-fact frustration on his face.)  You’re not shouting.  (Dorian seems not to hear.)  I said, you’re not shouting! (Dorian lets out a pathetic little shout and continues to shimmy.)  Look, don’t think I want to get into this.  Because I don’t want to ask you, I really don’t. But you leave me no choice…what issues are you having Dorian?

DOR: (still shimmying) Zelda left me this morning.

BRI:  (uninterested) Really?  Why?

DOR:  Because I turn thirty in exactly…(he looks at his watch), five minutes and fifty two seconds.  Fifty one, fifty, forty nine, forty eight, forty seven—

BRI:  Wait a minute.  Just—would you stop for a second?  (Dorian stops his shimmy and plops down on the ground, sadly gazing at his watch.  Brison goes over to his pile of books.  He frantically searches for the right one as if life hung in the balance.  He finds THE GREAT GATSBY.  He leafs through it to find the right passage.  When he does, he reads it out loud.)  “Thirty—the promise of a decade of loneliness, a thinning list of single men to know, a thinning brief-case of enthusiasm, thinning hair…So we drove on toward death through the cooling twilight.”  (Brison stands in absolute horror as Dorian still stares at the watch.)

DOR:  I appreciate the consolation.

BRI:  Do you have any idea what this means?

DOR:  (Reaching over and taking the book from Brison he reads out loud, matter-of-factly.)  “A thinning list of single men to know, a thinning brief-case of enthusiasm, thinning—(Brison snatches the book from him.)

BRI:  Don’t be trite.  (Dorian lies down and starts to moan.)  This is a disaster.  This is a goddamn travesty of consequence.  A placard of doom emblazoned with the blood of my very own heart.  Sixty-two straight days of rehearsal only to find out…this.  (Brison starts to panic and slightly hyperventilate.)  How did you fail to mention this to me?  (He goes to his pile of books and searches through them even more frantically.  Dorian notices his panic and goes over to console him.)

DOR:  Aw, thanks for being so understanding man.  But don’t beat yourself up about it.  I’ll get over her.  (pause)  Ha, Zelda!  What kind of a name is that anyway?  Sounds like something you don’t want in your food.  Excuse me, waiter?  There’s a Zelda in my soup! (Dorian starts to laugh hysterically at his own joke, forgetting his sadness for a moment.)

BRI:  (pausing his search for a second) What the hell are you talking about?  Zelda is not the issue my solipsistic friend.  If you could consider for a moment a world outside of yourself you might learn something.  (he goes back to searching)

DOR:  Alright fine.  (Dorian spots a CD on the ground.  He picks it up and goes to put it in the player.)  Look, let’s just use this to our advantage.  Keep it simple.  We can do the uh, the pitiful um…what was it called?

BRI:  (he looks at Dorian to see what CD he’s putting in) Oh no.  That one was your idea.  Pitiful post-modern Sinatra right?

DOR:  (smiling) Yeah.

BRI:  (in disgust) You are to be the death of me.

DOR:  (He hits play.)  Come on.  I liked that one.  Just nice, simple, and sweet.  (Dorian tilts his fisherman’s cap down over his eyes and starts to sway to the piano like a crooner.  He mouths the words of Sinatra as they are said on the CD.  He seems to be coming out of sadness through the soothing sounds of the piano.)  “This is the part of the program where we sing a drunk song…drunk songs are usually done in small bars and bistros, in the wee hours of the morning…usually talked or sung by a fella who’s got problems…like uh, his broad flew the coop…with another guy and all the bread.” (Dorian escapes into the world of Sinatra and the artificial laughter of the audience.)  “So if you will uh, assume the position of a bar tender, this is the way these guys behave.” (Dorian starts to lip-sync with the words.)  “It’s quarter to three.  There’s no one in the place.  Except you and me…set ‘em up Joe.  I got a little story, I think you should know.  We’re drinkin’ my friend, to the end-”

BRI:  I got it!  (Dorian stops his routine.  Brison runs over to the CD player and shuts it off furiously.  Dorian’s sadness returns.  Brison holds a copy of Jame’s Joyce’s DUBLINERS.  He recites from it.)  “Those venal and furtive loves filled him with despair.  He gnawed the rectitude of his life; he felt that he had been outcast from life’s feast…he was outcast from life’s feast.”  That’s it! (Brison stands in triumph of his realization as Dorian’s hopes are quickly shattered.  Dorian looks down at his watch sadly and then over at Brison who has a wide smile on his face.)

DOR:  Well, you really know how to cheer up a guy.  (He walks downstage and sits back on the floor.)

BRI:  No no.  You’ve got it all wrong.  You should feel good about this.

DOR: (sarcastic) Yeah, you’re right.  Ya know, since I can remember I’ve always thought, “I can not wait to be outcast from life’s feast.  What a glorious day that will be.”  (Brison walks over to Dorian.)

BRI:  Look, all I’m saying is that those post-modern chicks out there don’t want thirty.  There is nothing hip, controversial, or relativistic about thirty.  Thirty is the five o’clock shadow of life my friend.  The storm before the storm.

DOR:  So what?  I’m not looking for anyone right now anyway.

BRI:  Yes you see, but I am…and you should be too damnit!

DOR:  (shrugging) Eh…

BRI:  Do I need to remind you why we got into this in the first place?

DOR: No. You said that performance art was the new fast track, and I quote, “to lots of ass.”

BRI:  And have I been wrong?

DOR: Well, so far there has been little truth to most of your claims.

BRI:  Oh, such as?

DOR:  Um, such as, “Dorian, you have no idea what it’s like to make love to a woman who’s read all of Kafka’s works fifty times over.”

BRI: So?  What’s wrong with that?

DOR: Or, “Dorian, you don’t know what sex is until you’ve had it with a vegan Buddhist palm reader who makes genitalia sculptures from old humus and tofu tasty cakes.”

BRI: All in good time.  Trust me. (Brison walks upstage to look behind the wall that separates them from the audience awaiting their show.) We just need to get past this problem before we go out there.

DOR: Past what problem?

BRI:  (he looks around, as if in fear of someone hearing him, and speaks in a whisper.)  To you…turning thirty.  I did not go into performance art to be dragged down by some aging fart.  Contemporary chicks have no discerning palate for the taste of death’s door.

DOR: Well, you’ve got exactly…(he looks at his watch), two minutes.

BRI:  Damn! (the two stand there, dumbfounded and confused.  Finally Brison gets an idea.)  I’ve got it. (He takes out his cell phone and starts to dial.)  I’m gonna call my cousin.

DOR: What does he know?

BRI:  Oh my god he’s brilliant!  He speaks like seven languages and has perfect pitch and all that.

DOR:  Great, I’m sure he can sing me back down to at least twenty-four, twenty three.

BRI:  Listen, this guy was reading Nietzche in utero. All right? (Dorian looks confused.  Brison turns his attention to the phone.)  Seamus! What’s going on man?  It’s Brison.  How’s it…yeah we’re going on in about ten minutes… oh, it’s ok. I understand.  You’ve got a lot on your plate right now and…wow really?…But how do you get the midgets into the soda cans…ha ha!  That’s awesome.  You must get so many chicks man, I tell you.  It’s like I always say—

DOR:  (he clears his throat and points to his watch.)  One minute.

BRI:  Oh right!  Shit.  Um, Seamus, I’ve got a question for you.  Dorian’s about to turn thirty…yeah, in one minute.  I know, tell me about it…Listen, I need to know um, what I can do to, you know, stop that from…uh huh…yeah, I think I have that…(he looks down at his CD collection.)  Yes, I’ve got it right here…ok…(he puts the CD into the player.  He pushes play.  It’s The Village People’s MACHO MAN.  Brison goes over to Dorian and says something into his ear.  Dorian then starts to jog backwards in a circle as Brison sits in the center dictating what Seamus tells him.)  OK faster…faster! You’re reversing your spiritual mileage…Are you seeing anything?  (Dorian shakes his head “no.”)  Keep it up. (Dorian looks at his watch.)

DOR: Thirty seconds.

BRI: (Into the phone.) Thirty seconds!…(to Dorian) He just says go faster…He says it might help if you recite the first three paragraphs of War and Peace…in Swedish…(he gets more desperate and hurried.) He says you should be seeing…

DOR:  Ten, nine, eight, seven…

BRI:  (More hurried.)  You should be seeing visions of yourself in a pool of Jell-O….surrounded by squirrels…

DOR: Six, five, four, three…

BRI:  (more hurried still) And your umbilical chord shooting like a rocket into the stars!

DOR:  Two, one. (he stops running, out of breath.)

BRI:  (hanging up the phone and turning off the CD) Shit!

DOR: (walking over to sit down with Brison) Well, that’s it.

BRI:  That is it.

DOR:  I’m thirty.

BRI:  You are thirty…you stupid thirty year old bastard of a man.

DOR: Look, I don’t think I had much to do with all of this.

BRI:  Oh, you had everything to do with this.  How do you think I stay so young? Magic?

DOR:  You’re twenty-six.

BRI:  And when thirty roles around you better believe I’ll be a little more prepared than you are tonight…thirty…you should be ashamed.

The two of them sit in silence for a few moments, not knowing what to do.  They look around in separate directions.

DOR: So…what now?

BRI:  (standing) Well, I suppose I’m going to have to make some excuse as to why grandpa is with me.  Hopefully they’ll take it well…if not, get Dick Clark on the phone and start taking some serious notes.

Brison walks off downstage.  Dorian quietly sits on the ground, looking around, and begins to  try and thrust his pelvis in the air.  Correctly. Determined.  Neil Young’s OLD MAN fades in softly.

CURTAIN.

Something big and heavy has been happening to Conor Oberst lately. I’m not sure what that something (or somethings) may be, but the transformation is written all over his latest record, The People’s Key, and I think it’s one of the most interesting stories of the year.

As the eighth full-lenght studio effort recorded under the soon to be retired Bright Eyes moniker (meaning, primarily, Oberst, soundscape wizard Mike Mogis, and synth specialist Nathaniel Walcott), The People’s Key finds the one-time Nebraskan wunderkind about as far away from his solipsistic genesis story as one can imagine; that is to say, where Oberst once seemed content to craft songs about some of the smallest, most nuanced aspects of his life and times (subway rides to Brooklyn, barroom poesy, reading a newspaper in a coffee shop while nursing a hangover), The People’s Key concerns itself only with THE BIG STUFF. Humanity’s origins. Reincarnation. Time-as-illusion. Rastafari. Father, son, and ghost. The thematic rundown here reads like an ambitious merger of Edward Cayce, Thich Nhat Hanh, Carl Sagan, and the Apostle Paul—a very ambitious record that listens like a cyclical meditation on a whole host of sweeping human conflicts and contradictions at once both modern and ageless. Also, it may be one of my favorite Oberst efforts to date.

Early examples of Oberst’s obsession with all things Conor are too numerous to recount here in their entirety. But consider, for instance, this chain of lyrics from “Hit The Switch,” a rollicking—if not dour—reflection on self destruction and twenty-something, post-modern existentialist angst on 2005′s Digital Ash In A Digital Urn:

I’m staring out into that vacuum again
From the back porch of my mind
The only thing that’s alive, I’m all there is
And I start attacking my vodka
Stab the ice with my straw
My eyes have turned red as stoplights
You seem ready to walk
You know I’ll call you eventually
When I wanna talk, ’til then you’re invisible

Cause there’s this switch that gets hit
And it all stops making sense
And in the middle of drinks
Maybe the fifth or the sixth
I’m completely alone at a table of friends
I feel nothing for them
I feel nothing, nothing.

To be sure, Oberst’s journey away from this sort of navelward songwriting (which, by the way, seemed so vital and “yeah man!” real when I was 23…we’ll see how it holds up) has been a slow train coming. For instance, Bright Eyes’ 2007 release Cassadaga not only took its title from a 116-year-old spiritualist camp in central Florida, but also included several tracks that hinted at a new Oberst in the making; a young man in perpetual search of broader understandings and peace that can’t be found at the bottom of a vodka bottle. Even Cassadaga’s album art speaks to this transformation, containing as it does myriad phrases and meditations that can only be seen with a “spectral decoder” included inside the record’s jacket. Consider:

• “Dog faced apologists pleasing themselves on the burning sand”
• “These myths are sacred and profane!”
• “Rocks beneath the water” (which is what “Cassadaga” means in the Seneca language)
• “Citrus slaves throwing dice in the dirt, amusement”
• “Swollen saints bathing in a backwards river under a sliver of a moon”
• “Mighty Saturn enters your eighth house”

Follow this with Oberst’s 2008 self-titled solo release, which opens with “Cape Canaveral,” a simple, bittersweet acoustic number that begins:

Oh, oh, oh brother totem pole
I saw your legends lined up
And I never felt more natural
Apart, I just came apart

Please, please, please sister Socrates
You always answer with a question
Show some kindness to a petty thief
Forgive, you did forgive

What sets The People’s Key apart from the rest—and thus marks Conor’s most bold step yet toward the purely spiritual—is that Oberst doesn’t waste a single track on anything trifling or desultory. Here there is no “First Day of My Life” or “Lua” or “We Are Nowhere And It’s Now” (all excellent, by the way). Exhibit A: The album’s opening track, “Firewall”, begins with a spoken-word sermon of sorts from Randy Brewer, a Texas musician Oberst met on the road who appears sporadically throughout the record.

“If there is no such thing as time, you’re already there and you’re controlling the cycle,” proclaims Brewer over some awesome, eerie ambients. “You say, ‘Man, look what we found here Einstein,’ or whoever you’re talkin’ to. Tesla. Whoever you’re talkin’ to. Problems of the future can be solved by mankind because you create ‘em.”

If there is a single, unifying through-line theme to be found amidst the caterwaul of spiritual confusion and understanding on The People’s Key, it can perhaps be found in this opening monologue; namely, that Oberst is trying his damnedest to reconcile his immediate, superficial, self-absorbed self (i.e. the one we all struggle against) with the more pervasive eternal truth’s that seem perpetually just beyond humanity’s grasp.

In the second track, “Shell Games,” Oberset proclaims:

If I could change my mind, change the paradigm
Prepare myself for another life
Forgive myself for the many times
I was cruel to something helpless and weak

But here it come, that heavy love
I’m never going to move it alone
Here it come, that heavy love
Tag it on a tenement wall
Here it come, that heavy love
Someone got to share in the load
Here it come, that heavy love
I’m never going to move it alone

I was dressed in white, touched by something pure
Death obsessed like a teenager
Sold my tortured youth, piss and vinegar
I’m still angry with no reason to be

Perfectly, it doesn’t stop for all 10 tracks; abstractions and incantations; lyrical minimalisms and epic reaches; aliens and pharaohs . On one of the record’s greatest tracks, “Haile Selassie” (right?!), Oberst brings the listener into some pastiche fever dream of eventual redemption and mind-clearing Knowledge that we are all single drops in the same infinitely expansive ocean, all waiting for that moment when the savior (literal? metaphoric?) arrives:

What if this leads to ruin?
You got a soul, use it
All this despair forgiven
Rolling away on the Wheel of Sevens
Sings like the Queen of Sheba
Voice through a Blonde Speaker
One dropping bubble and Leslie
Calling me home like Haile Selassie

Pilgrim beside the fire
It’s been a long winter
We got a lot in common
Cover our heads as they split the atom
All of our days are numbered
I’ll take in some comfort in knowing the wave has crested
Knowing I don’t have to be an exception
Children they fill the bleachers
One is the next Caesar
Keep all their minds collected
Until he comes
Until he comes

Want just one more? Near the end of the record comes “Ladder Song,” a tune Oberst hammered out on the piano in tribute to and reflection of a close friend who recently committed suicide in Omaha. Its opening stanza:

No one knows where the ladder goes
You’re gonna lose what you love the most
You’re not alone in anything
You’re not unique in dying
Feel estranged every now and then
Fall asleep reading science fiction
I wanna fly in your silver ship
Let Jesus hang and Buddha sit

I’ll be honest, I was not an immediate fan of this album. Upon a first (even second, or third) listen, The People’s Key has an oddly discordant soundscape that utilizes some shrill and cutting synths as well as uncharacteristically drubbing (and equally bad-ass-tight) guitar riffs. Those who might be looking for Oberst’s younger proclivities for Americana and Alt. Country may be disappointed. When combined with the severity—nay, the uncomfortably revelatory nature of the lyrics, The People’s Key takes some getting used to. But should you surrender—and make no mistake, there is a degree of surrender required for maximum enjoyment here, as with anything of significant spiritual value—you are going to rejoice in not only one of the greatest songwriters of our generation, but also a man who seems to have very significantly taken to heart the axiom of the lyrical predecessor to whom he has so often been compared: he’s very (very) busy being born, and not too fond of dying.

Here, in a few words, is the paradox of Michael Jackson that is so difficult for us to understand:

The issue, really, comes down to our refusal of the reality that none of us is capable of being defined (or, more importantly, defining others) by any one particular facet of one’s personality. I am no more wholly “Nick From Medford” than I am “Nick, Cydnee’s Boyfriend.” Or “Nick, Guitar Player” than I am “Nick, the 29-year-old dude who lives next to me on Mill Street.” I am all of these people—these personalities, these manifest versions—combined into one. Separate, but equal. It is a strange duality indeed, and while I always strive for unity between my own fickle nature’s forces, I am increasingly confronted with the realization that it is impossible to express oneself fully at any given time.

I need look no further than those I know. Surely there are elements of other people’s personalities—my sister’s, my brother’s, my parents’, my best friend’s—of which I am at least partially, if not wholly, unaware. So doesn’t it only make sense that I too have such places and elements of personality, of which others are not wholly (or even partially) aware?

Of course it does.

Now, consider Michael Jackson. He was a human being, therefore he was subject to the same whims and impossibilities that govern all other human beings, myself most certainly included. If one also considers that Michael Jackson was not only a human being but a remarkable one at that—in talent, fame, and fortune—one is forced to contemplate what such exception does to the unpredictable and sometimes calamitous human spirit. Because of his place in the world, Michael Jackson’s dualities were obviously larger and far more noticeable to others (i.e., complete strangers and enemies) than they are to most of us, myself most certainly included.

How, we seem to ask ourselves, is it possible that such a beautiful and talented creature—a force of poetic human potential and positive energy such as the world only sees every few centuries—be equally scarred by such dark demons of self? How could Michael Jackson have been at once so unifying and divisive at the same time?

These are the sorts of questions we cannot seem to answer about Michael Jackson because these are the sorts of questions we cannot seem to answer about ourselves. Moreover, these are the sorts of questions that will continue to haunt us in his memory (and our own evolution) unless we begin to understand the larger frame of knowledge taking shape here. If we self examine—not superficially, but really self examine, down to the uncharted core of the soul, that place we keep hidden and from which we too often hide—and accept, rather than deny, our own shared dualities and conflicts and impossibilities of self, we will fail to understand perhaps the ultimate reason for his existence. What a shame that would be.

“And no message could have been any clearer. If you wanna make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and make a change…”

On the morning of October 19, a short press release went out to dozens of journalists declaring that the Chamber would be holding a press conference to announce a sudden about-face concerning its position on climate change legislation it had previously opposed. It apparently went unnoticed by reporters that the Chamber president’s name was misspelled on the release, but let’s not trifle with the details just yet.

Shortly after receiving the release, about a dozen journalists representing several prominent news organizations gathered on the 13th floor of the National  Press Club (um, yeah) in Washington, D.C. to hear the “news.”

During the press conference, which lasted all of 20 minutes, a supposed Chamber spokesperson (who went by the name Hingo Sembra) told reporters that the organization had changed its mind. The bill, he said, was good for American businesses. The legislation, he said, might not be so bad after all.

And the media gobbled it up. Fast.

In less time than it takes to download an album from iTunes, several major news organizations, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Reuter’s, rushed to post stories of the press conference on their respective Web sites. In its news story, Reuter’s declared, “The Chamber of Commerce said on Monday it will no longer opposes climate change legislation, but wants the bill to include a carbon tax.” A CNBC anchor, who actually sought—and found—comment from analysts, interrupted herself mid-sentence to announce “breaking news,” cutting away to a reporter who read from the fake press release. Apparently he too missed the spelling error.

When it was revealed shortly thereafter that the affair had been nothing more than a hoax orchestrated by the cultural activist group The Yes Men, these stories were immediately retracted; but it was too little too late. The damage to journalism had already been done. And while major media outlets were not The Yes Men’s primary targets here, it’s is clear that they are the ones who should feel the most humiliated by the experience.

The misspelling of Chamber president Thomas J. Donohue’s name on the press release not withstanding, the announcement of this press conference’s intentions should have been a red enough flag to raise a healthy dose of suspicion amongst seasoned reporters, many of whom had been covering the Chamber for several years prior to the morning’s proceedings. And had these journalists been doing their jobs properly, a single confirmation phone call to the Chamber could have prevented the entire mess from unfolding. But phone calls take time—sometimes several minutes—and well, reporters really can’t be bothered with such prosaic tasks these days. After all, who would manage their Twitter accounts in the meantime?

To be sure, an episode like the Yes Men hoax debacle is not the only harbinger of journalism’s waning pulse, but it is certainly a significant part of the problem. Cable news networks and print publications have become so obsessed with the flash and pizzazz (“Look mom, no sources!”) of Internet and 24-hour insta-reporting that they are apparently willing to throw out the most basic tenants of responsible journalism in exchange for breaking news on a second-by-second basis.

Today’s reporters and media consumers have neglected to stop and consider whether faster news equals better news, and this episode should serve as a warning that not every task is improved upon with a speedier delivery. There is a reason so-called “traditional” media once took so long to deliver: Some news is supposed to be slow. There is virtue and necessity in its meditative, cautious progression; but when immediacy—not accuracy—becomes the primary motivation in the dissemination of information, we all suffer.

Sure, when it comes to getting a pizza at your doorstep, the sooner the better. But with journalism, speed kills.

For further study, check out this brilliant indictment of CNN from John Stewart late last year. As always, it’s hilarious and poignant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFdU0JC5NEg

But this post is not about the long weekend or the close of seasons or the fact that I learned how to light a Zippo off my thigh in one (very cool) singular motion. It’s about the meaning of life. Kinda.

Late in the evening during my last night in Connecticut, I found myself in the middle of a conversation concerning a topic that has perpetually served as one of “Nick DiUlio’s Great Life Themes” throughout the years. With the embers of the dwindling camp fire glowing and hissing like a miniature Tim Burton city aflame, myself and two others began musing on the need for meaning in human existence. Heavy, I know, but bear with me.

I think it all began—as most great conversations do—with the topic of falling in love. The beautiful and frightening surrender to another person and all of the emotional vagaries that ensue. This, of course, led to the nature of empathy and wavelengths and wether or not it is ever possible to truly understand another individual’s precise emotions at any given moment. One of my friends said she believed this was certainly possible. That every so often we find ourselves impossibly locked into the emotional (or, perhaps, spiritual) core of another’s experience and that in that moment we can see quite clearly everything moving through that person’s heart and mind. My other friend said she did not believe this was possible, that what we take for empathy or emotional oneness (please forgive the esoteric verbiage here) is really nothing more than a biological synthesis of neurons firing together at a precise moment in time. An accident of emotional coincidence. An illusion of meaning.

To be sure, this post is not designed to make a case for one world view over another. Entire books have been written on the topic, so I petition you to seek out the further wisdom of such tomes. But I was struck by a particular moment in the conversation when my “biological” friend said she believed human beings were, for lack of a more eloquent and precise term, a stain on the Earth, and that existence—whatever that is—would be better off without us.

I do believe I can say with more than a modicum of conviction that this is not true (even though the word truth seems to be smacking me in the face right now with its puckish subjectivity). Even on a purely biological level, human beings—as a species—are in no way separate from the broader order of the universe’s chemical makeup, no matter how accidental or intentional one sees that assembly. So to say that we are any more or less important to the greater “purpose” (WAH-WAH! subjectivity alert!) of existence doesn’t seem terribly logical, no more than it would be logical to claim that bees are an anathema because they sting, or elephants are a bane because they trample.

But again, I am not here to light the flames of this particular piece of philosophical tinder. I leave that up to you and your own fireside chats. I’m here because that conversation (which was wonderfully stimulating and endlessly enjoyable) brought into an even clearer perspective the impossible beauty and privilege I feel almost every day in being alive. Corny as it may be, I really dig this life, and as this summer (one of the most enriching and lovely I can recall) “ends”, I am filled with thoughts such as these.

To cap it off I’d like to share a short film Cydnee brought to my attention last week. La Maison en Petits Cubes by Kunio Kato won last year’s animated short film prize at the Academy Awards, and it left an indelible mark on my heart. Here’s hoping it may do the same for you.

“Three things are necessary,” wrote Thomas Aquinas, “for the salvation of man: to know what he ought to believe; to know what he ought to desire; and to know what he ought to do.” It could be said that Topography of a Bird, the charming full-length debut from singer-songwriter Mark Rice, is an exploration of that path to enlightenment. Full of transcendental petitions for love, comfort, and understanding, Topography is a record that explores some complicated queries through some improbably uncomplicated folk melodies and introspective lyrics; the meditations of a journeyman concerned less with the answers than he is with the questions at hand.

Topography of a Bird is the stuff of Sunday night introspection; of those solitary moments that descend after the church lights have dimmed, the monks have retired for the evening, and the rest of the congregants have gone home. In those instances, alone and unhinged against the backdrop of forever, one rarely thinks in nuanced poetry or grand declarations. Instead, he thinks (prays, meditates) on the perpetually dawning sweep of his life in the broader scope, and Rice seems to understand this quite well, whittling his search down to its most primary parts. How have I failed? How have I succeeded? What do I desire? What do I despise? Who am I now and what do I eventually wish to become? That his music appeals to these (quote-unquote) big life questions without proselytization or solipsistic trifling is a laudable feat, and it’s what males Topography at once so enjoyable and also so severe.

Belief, desire, and action. Rice raises the curtain on these concerns from the outset with the album’s whispered opening track, “Show Me How To Love,” a lyrically and sonically understated entree that begins with the chirping rhythm of nighttime crickets before the first strum of guitars. As the song builds Rice returns to one simple refrain over and over again: “Show me how to love/ Show me how to love/ When the stars are so bright…so bright.” It’s a soft meditation that sets the table for the album’s ensuing 13 tracks.

To be sure, Rice’s brush strokes are broad, even at times a little vague, as he peppers Topography with supplicant titles like “Hold Me Now,” “Don’t Let Me Down,” and “Save Me Tonight.” But this strain of indeterminate invocation—to a woman? to a friend? to God?—is the record’s greatest strength. It’s what binds the album as an honest and accessible work. And even when he sometimes dances on the edge of sentimentality Rice never gives in, always managing to avoid preciousness with an easy turn of phrase. His songs—along with all of their potential vagaries—are both intensely personal (see the wonderfully haunting “Ohio”) and yet universally appealing to a hunger for understanding what it means to be frail and broken and human.

In “Hold Me Now,” Rice is “at the crossroads/ Looking for the ancient way, the good way.” In “Don’t Let Me Down”—a road-ready, drive-time ditty—he beckons, “Don’t let the day get away/ Until I make amends.” And in “Maybe This Time,” one of Topography’s standout tracks: “I’m messed up and broken/ And I can’t see past my pride.” The cynics may confuse these for the lamentations of an old-world Pollyanna, the cries a man who still believes that perhaps salvation is simpler than we think. But where Rice’s silence and simplicity leave off, the vibrancy of the album’s musicality picks up.

Topography’s edge of enlightenment owes much to the production of David Young, a vintage stylist with some serious pop-rock predilections that harken back less to Dylanesque balladeers than to The Beach Boys or Weezer. Pulling from that tradition, Young allows Rice’s otherwise simple, coffee-shop melodies to blossom and grow into their fuller organic potential. Consider “Tuscan Sun,” a bittersweet number that, in the hands of a lesser reggisseur, might suffer under the weight of its own importance. But Young—who sings backup and also plays several studio instruments on the record, including some impressive lead guitar and harmonica—transforms the track into something wholly anthemic. You can almost see the lighters being raised in unison as a grand, harmonic chorus swells in the final minute, begging “Don’t let the sun go down now/ All my life I’ve waited now I/ Know your eyes, your life, your smile with mine.” It’s a sublime moment.

The same could be said of “Be With you Tonight.” What begins as an unadorned bedroom ballad—a little bit Elliot Smith, a little bit Ray Lamontagne—slowly builds into another one of Topography’s unexpected anthems, swelling with pianos, thudding percussion, and electric guitars. Just when it seems Rice’s spirit is beyond saving, his music finds redemption yet again. Torture, death, rebirth. Let the rain fall down.

Rice also gets a lot of help from a respectable swath of studio musicians here, including the venerable Verien Brotzman on percussion, Tom Swope on bass, and Sissy Clemens on violin and vocals (more about her in a moment). But Topography’s background players do more than add layers to the music; they lend the album a casual air of good nature and inviting humor. Despite their gravity, Rice’s tunes are not depressive. In fact they are remarkably optimistic, and this chorus of musicians at his back only serve to drive home that point.

Only once on the album does Rice take a backseat to his fellow musicians, and the moment is one of Topography’s greatest triumphs. On “Starting Ground” Clemens takes the reigns and delivers a beautiful slice of smoky sensuality and sadness that thoroughly bely her mere 20 years. “Starting Ground” is a Clemens original and the only non-Rice tune on the record. Delivered at the album’s half-way mark, this late-night, bar-room piano ballad (I am painfully resisting the all-to-obvious Billie Holiday comparison here), which concerns itself with the simple sorrow of deception, takes the pathos to an entirely new level while never feeling out of place within the context of Topography’s greater aesthetic.

Rice has said the Topography’s title is derived from a quote he once heard about the ways in which thoughts are like birds. “We can’t stop them from flying over our heads,” it goes. “But we can keep them from making a nest in our hair.” What Rice has done is craft an album that is rich with flight and absent of any nests. It’s a patient album for a throughly impatient time, and at every turn it feels as though silent salvation is at hand.

BONUS TRACK: Check out the following clip of Rice performing “Ohio” last month in Pittsburgh during his record release concert.

]]> http://nickdiulio.wordpress.com/2009/05/07/review-topography-of-a-bird/feed/ 2 Nick cover_1ajpg http://nickdiulio.wordpress.com/2009/02/25/native-american-pale-ale-rock-or-how-i-came-to-know-the-great-unkown/ http://nickdiulio.wordpress.com/2009/02/25/native-american-pale-ale-rock-or-how-i-came-to-know-the-great-unkown/#comments Thu, 26 Feb 2009 03:43:52 +0000 Nick DiUlio http://nickdiulio.wordpress.com/?p=313 ]]>

The February sun had set on Saturday night and Theatre 941 in Northern Liberties was becoming quite crowded with the weird beards and biceps cartoons that can so often be found wherever the mighty blue ribbon is served. Everyone was gathered that evening on North Front Street for the first annual Pabst Blue Ribbon Art & Craft Fair, which, for the nominal entry fee of $6, promised live music, an endless well of the beer being praised, and wall-to-wall PBR-inspired wares like red white and blue quilts, beeramid cupcakes, and bottle-lid cufflinks.

I had no intention of discovering new music that night. I was there to cover the event for Beer Magazine and around 7 p.m. found myself talking to Julie Roboczi, the show’s founder and organizer. Roboczi heads up the venerable Philadelphia Independent Craft Market and had, on a whim of inspiration, decided to launch this first of many PBR fairs to come. We were halfway into a chat about the event when a broken bathroom poet arrived on the scene to declare an emergency.

“I was sent to tell you there’s a problem with the bathroom,” said the young man in a brown leather coat trimmed with sepia fur. He had appeared from nowhere, leaned in, and spoke in an easy, calculated rhythm, like the bathroom was a lady and its problem was a broken heart. He wore dark country jeans with a rolled left cuff, workingman shoes, and a hapless fedora on a curly head of hair. His wide, unblinking eyes bounced from corner to corner. “I think you’ll want to attend to its needs,” he said. And then he smiled.

The purple costume feathers sprouting from the head of Roboczi twitched in time with her mild flustering as armies of ironic sneakers marched around her and so many tattooed fists clutched cans of warming Pabst against their patch-work hoodies and striped cardigans. The music was loud, the din beneath the buzzing fluorescent lights getting boozier by the minute. A malfunctioning bathroom was indeed an urgent matter. “Well,” she said, “I think I should go see to it then. I’ll be back. Excuse me.” And then she smiled. And then she was gone. I was left standing next to the messenger.

“You don’t want that tonight,” he said, still darting his eyes, still smiling. “Lots of PBR going down easy. Lots of pissing going on, I’m sure.” He took a sip from his can of Pabst and swallowed hard. “Like lava.”

“What’s that?” I asked. His voice was low and muted beneath the thundering of some punk outfit playing loudly in the adjacent room.

“Like laaava.” He drawled. “Laaava. Pissing lava.” I wasn’t sure what he meant by this. Not in the least. But whatever he was trying to say was clearly dear to him, clearly the most important moment of that moment because his eyes stayed wide and the humor of his internal monologue registered with every slink of his puckish frame. So we kept on talking.

This, I came to find out, was none other than Todd Henkin, and Todd Henkin’s band was about to go on in thirty minutes. “We’re The Great Unknown,” he said. “But we’re different than what you’re hearing right now. It’s nothing like this.”

“This” was thudding, post-Pixies metal mixed with a dash of slick Interpol angst, the kind that comes on at 2 a.m. after one too many PBRs. “We’re more like…Americana? Or uh, or like roots style music. Lap steel and all that. I don’t know. It’s…it’s not like this. It’s not PBR kind of music, I don’t think.”

“So what kind of beer should somebody drink to your music?”

“I don’t know. Maybe an IPA? Yeah!” Henkin liked every pet theory that came to mind. And he really liked this one.

“There’s your genre right there, man,” I told him. “IPA rock.”

“Right! Yeah. We’re an India Pale Ale.” He laughed a little and tossed off the moment with a shrug. It was then I realized that I wasn’t sure about anything he was saying. I had been at the craft fair for nearly two hours at this point, and to be sure, nothing breeds suspicion quite like these sorts of No Libs gatherings. Everything is a joke and everything is a serious edict at once. Sincerity and sarcasm do a mad, opium dance of the dead and suddenly all one is left with is the certainty that nothing is certain. Ever. For all I knew Henkin was full of shit. For all I knew he could have been a solo hip-hop free stylist who dressed as a clown on stage and rapped about Kierkegaard’s latent fascination with Muppets or accountants with Dixie Cup fetishes.

Or he might not be a musician at all. Who was to say? This was Northern Liberties. This was Pabst.

“Either way,” he continued, “I don’t really like the term ‘Americana.’ That’s not it. Maybe we need another genre. Like…like native American.”

“But then people might think about American Indians,” I said, noticing for the first time a subtle scar that ran from the corner of his mouth to the dip of his five-o’clock chin. “I don’t think that’s what you’re going for.”

“But…yeah! No, that’s it! Native American. American Indians. We are American Indians. I’m an American Indian. Like Bob Dylan.”

“Bob Dylan was an American Indian?” This, I knew, was certainly not true.

But then again…

“Hell yeah! He was an Indian.” Henkin laughed again.

“Dude, he was Jewish. You’re telling me he was a Jewish American Indian?”

“Oh…wait. No, yeah. Jewish! He was Jewish.” More laughter. More mad, darting eyes. He looked at me like he was on the lamb and I was about to call the cops. “That’s what I meant. Jewish. They’re so similar, ya know? Jewish. Indian. I get ‘em mixed up. So maybe Jewish American rock? Whatya think?”

The conversation continued like this for a few more minutes until Robosczi finally returned to tell us all was right with the flushable world. I shook Henkin’s hand and told him I was anxious to hear the band. He told me to find some IPA.

Later, while waiting in the back of the theatre for some more PBR to arrive (the natives growing restless) I began to hear the copper strumming of an acoustic guitar. The thudding of a country bass. The slick slide of a lap steel. The Great Unknown was warming up. When the new batch of beer finally arrived I grabbed myself a chilled, cozi-less can and made my way to the crowded front room, where I found Henkin and Co. already well into the second song of their set.

So he was telling the truth after all.

For thirty minutes I watched The Great Unknown churn out some of the most exciting and finely crafted American music I have had the pleasure of hearing in this city. Henkin lead the outfit with his loose acoustic and sharp vocals, backed all the while by a jangly electric guitar, sweet and subtle lap steel, excitable bass, and riverstone drums. They were harmonizing three parts, laughing between beats, and moving in mountain step with one another the way one imagines wolves might if they had smiles and voices and hands to play such sweet, rollicking tavern anthems to the night.

For thirty minutes I watched The Great Unknown conjure up images of its woozy urban cowboyism played against the mossy backdrop of an American forest, or through the smoky blur of a basement in the dark, pensive Pennsylvania hills. Henkin sang about love declared to sleeping ladies and whistled his way through a number’s closing. He made Tom Waits references between songs and all the while kept darting his wide, junkyard eyes from corner to corer, just as he had done when I met him less than an hour before.

For thirty minutes I watched the members of The Great Unknown have the time of their lives, as though every number was the closing of a concert given to celebrate the end of the world. I watched them inspire some in the crowd to belt out delirious rebel yells that would make the sober eyes of nuns rattle in their heads and young women shudder for the impossibility of affection. This was the young man music for which rock and roll was first invented. The music of getting drunk when it matters the most. The music of reckless love in dusty jukebox corners. The music of being snowed in by time and guarded against its sinister march. The music of long conversations that mean nothing, save for their assurance that long conversations still exist somewhere in the hearts of the young.

For thirty minutes I watched The Great Unknown restore my faith in the possibility of accidentally stumbling upon a band that makes you want to sing until your voice is raw and stomp until your feet are blistered and ghostly. I have spent many years seeking out such possibility, going from Philly pub to Philly pub with the hope that I might leave with the desire to tell everyone about the band I just saw. Sadly, that expectation is most often met with disappointment, and I wind up wondering if anyone is yet to be discovered. But last weekend I was treated to thirty unexpected minutes of The Great Unknown, and now I know the search has been worth it. And it is worth it still.

It’s unfortunate that the indie world has become so bloated with expectation and slavish devotion to novelty and irony these days, because what so many local outfits miss in their efforts to become the next Arcade Fire or Deerhoof (fine bands in their own right, don’t get me wrong) is the bliss of being enveloped by the simple, singular pleasure of solid songwriting and a band bleeding its life on stage. Consider that just last month I watched a seven-piece group crowd the North Star with a violin, three guitars, synth keyboards and marching band drums. In all of their expected grandeur, those guys and gals couldn’t manage to eek out a single melody that came close to even the simplest lines of The Great Unknown. These dudes know how to summon the muse, and they do it damn well.

Look, this band isn’t going to push the limits of pop music evolution. The Great Unknown probably won’t rearrange the sonic landscape as we know it or woo the critics with its visionary scope. But I can tell you this: they will make you feel, they will give you one hell of a good show, and you’ll find yourself humming their tunes long after the others have packed away their violins and cut off the power to their canned orchestras.

With the PBR fair finally winding down I managed to catch up with Henkin as he and his mates packed up for a show later that night in Center City. But before I could get a word in to tell him how incendiary their set was, he looked at me and said, “So. Did it make you want an IPA?”

Check out The Great Unknown here. Or better yet, go see them play at Johnny Brenda’s on March 7. You won’t be disappointed.

Lesson Number Three: What The Music Taught Me (Part II)

Musical Insight #5: I Admit. I Was Wrong About “Sky Blue Sky.”

“You’re crazy. You’ve lost your fucking mind and your right to sit at this table any more. I can’t believe you would say that!” Outside of sixth period lunch, Keith Herndon wasn’t a terribly effusive character. More often than not he expressed a quiet, rueful disposition that bellied how bright he was and how keenly he observed the world around him. His was the type of sharp, silent cynicism you wanted to know better but rarely got to see—unless, of course, you happened to share a table with him during sixth period lunch.

As each of us was want to do from time to time, Keith had just proposed his “would you rather” question of the day. These often ranged from the silly (“Would you rather eat an entire box of Altoids in one mouthful or lick the floor of a public restroom?”) to the semi-profound (“Would you rather go back in time and kill Hitler before the war or be granted the power of invisibility?”). On this particular afternoon sometime during our senior year at Shawnee High School, Keith’s hypothetical was a little bit of both: “If you were stranded on a desert island,” he began, “would you rather have the entire musical catalogue of James Taylor or Bob Dylan? Discuss.” Without exception, everyone at the table said Dylan. I, however, was the lone voice of dissent, claiming that I would much rather have every record James Taylor had made.

Cue Keith’s outrage. “James Taylor? Really! You obviously don’t know anything about music.”

No! He was wrong. I knew plenty about music, and what I knew as certainly as the inevitability of sunrise was that James Taylor was the better choice in the matter. End of story. For the remainder of the lunch period I fought this conviction with impossible fervor. The argument eventually reached such heights that one of our favorite teachers was called over to moderate. “Mr. Baker,” Keith said, “what would you rather have?”

During the brief pause of Mr. Baker’s contemplation, I actually thought there was a chance I would have found an ally in my little war. An adult ally nonetheless. But then Mr. Baker gave his answer—“Dylan. It’s a no-brainer.”—and I knew I had lost.

“Ha! See! It’s settled,” Keith said. “You’re an idiot.”

It took me several years to realize it, but Keith was right. I was an idiot. Sometime between my freshman and sophomore years of college, I went on to discover the unparalleled genius of Dylan, and since that discovery I have thought back to that lunch period debate many times. How could I have ever felt so convicted toward something about which I was so clearly wrong?

To be sure, the lunch table incident wasn’t the only time I’ve been wrong about my musical tastes. I used to think Bob Marley was boring. I used to cringe at the sound of Lucinda Williams’ voice. And (horror of horrors!) I used to make fun of my parents for listening to Frank Sinatra. Try as I might, it seems impossible to avoid these lapses in sonic judgement from time to time, and once again I submit another egregious error with humble resolve: I was wrong about Wilco’s 2007 release Sky Blue Sky.

Before I go any further, you have to know that I love Wilco. Unequivocally and without apology, I think they are one of the best bands to emerge in the last decade. I’ve seen them live on more than one occasion and typically adore everything they produce. But last year, when it came to Sky Blue Sky, something was stifling the bloom of my expected adoration. For reasons now unknown to me, I found the record tedious, derivative, and, frankly, boring. Perhaps I was still hung up on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Perhaps I wasn’t in the mood for Jeff Tweedy’s delicate, literary angst. Perhaps evil aliens had temporarily invaded my body and mind, severely effecting my judgement. No matter the reason, whether my heart or my shoes, I went on quietly hating Tweedy’s blues. Until about three months ago.

Since its release, the subject off Sky Blue Sky’s brilliance was a perpetual debate between my friend Dave and me. Whenever the band came up in conversation, Dave never failed to try and sway my opinion, claiming I was certifiably insane for disliking it so much. “‘Impossible Germany’ is one of the best song’s they’ve ever written,” he would say. “And I think Sky Blue Sky may be the best album they’ve ever made.” His protestations, of course, only made me slink further and further into my little cave of disagreement. Once again I was lugging James Taylor off to the desert island, with a proud middle finger to the world I was leaving behind.

Well, for reasons just as inexplicable as those that led me loath the record, Sky Blue Sky has finally been revealed to me for what it truly is: a beautiful, soulful album with some of the most breathtaking guitar work in Wilco’s catalogue and some of the best lyrics Tweedy has ever written. Consider this, from “You Are My Face”: “Trying to be thankful/ Our stories fit into phones/ And our voices lift so easily/ A gift given accidentally/ When we’re not sure/ We’re not alone…”

It’s been more than a year since Wilco released Sky Blue Sky, so I know I’m late to the party. But I’m happy the door remained open, despite my hostile pacing on the street outside. Now, if only someone could explain to me what all the fuss is about when it comes to Pink Floyd…

Musical Insight #4: The Hold Steady Still Might Kill Me

For a while there it seemed like I couldn’t remember a time when The Hold Steady wasn’t a part of the American pop-music landscape. Sometime over the course of the last five years, this pub-ready, post-Keroucian rock band from Minneapolis became as ubiquitous as oxygen. If one music magazine wasn’t crowning them the best band in America, they were instead knighting them the best band to ever lay down a track. All of this swirling pother, of course, only made me want to dislike them more. But then I spent a night in Long Beach Island with my friend Joe, and everything came into focus.

It was mid-July and we were standing outside a tavern that boasted one of those summer bands that hammers out the usual cover songs to the drunk and shameless—you know, “Livin’ on a Prayer,” “White Wedding,” something lame by Sugar Ray or Smashmouth. Smoking and lamenting, Joe started exclaiming the virtues of The Hold Steady, which were eventually echoed by an Irishman who came over to bum a cigarette and tell us all about his days on the road with Bowie and Springsteen and Tom Petty. (“Aw, Petty man, he was a fooking laid back son of a bitch!”) And while I had heard Joe go off before about how phenomenal The Hold Steady supposedly was, something about his fervor at that moment struck me as important. For the first time I finally felt ready to figure out why he loved them so much. The drunk Irishman agreed. “Right oh, mate. Fookin’ check it out.”

The following Monday I did just that. During my lunch break, I downloaded The Hold Steady Almost Killed Me, the band’s debut record from 2004. Not since first pressing play on Led Zeppelin’s self-titled debut in 1997 and hearing the heaven-tearing riffs of “Good Times, Bad Times” had an opening track moved me as much as The Hold Steady’s “Positive Jam.” Not only were the lyrics coming from some crunchy, stream-of-consciousness bone alley of the brain (“Twisting into dark parts of big midwestern cities/ Tripped right through the 60s with some blissful little hippie/ Some Kennedys got shot while you were screwing san francisco/ The 70s got heavy we woke up on bloody carpets/ Got tangled up in gaslines/ I guess that’s where it started/ The 80s almost killed me let’s not recall them quite so fondly…”), but the guitar solo that comes at the end of the track was the precise shot in the arm I needed to finally feel what everyone else had apparently been feeling for some time now. I was finally infected with the magic of this oh-so American band and have not been able to kick the habit since. They are, quite simply, the best band in America right now.

There, I said it.

Musical Insight #3: Festivals Are Awesome

I know, I know. Late to the party once again. Your thinking: “Who hasn’t been to a music festival at least once in his life?” Well, until last July…me (okay, I did attend Creation once in 1998, but that doesn’t count). For whatever reason, I had never been afforded the opportunity of traveling with friends to whatever remote country-side locale was hip at the time to bask in the 48-hour glow of nonstop music, frivolity, and drink—which is why I was so excited when the opportunity arose for me to drive down to Maryland for the 2008 Virgin Mobile Festival (on someone else’s dime, nonetheless).

Not only did I have the opportunity to see artists like Wilco, The Foo Fighters, Bob Dylan, Citizen Cope, Andrew Bird, and She & Him, but I spent two days rambling around with whatever characters struck me as interesting. We painted our names onto brick walls. We sang duets with Iggy pop. We drank plenty of brew. We saw dirt bikes do backflips and a Sharon Jones & The Dapp Kings light up the morning. I’m not sure in what ways exactly, but when I pulled into my driveway at 3 a.m. the following Monday morning, I knew I was a different man.

Musical Insight #2: Everyone’s Lives Will Benefit From These Five Songs

Well, 2008 has come to a close, and my insights have all been spent. So, instead of the tedium of another lengthy post, I will endeavor to leave you with two countdown entires. First, the five best songs of 2008…

1) “Cape Canaveral” by Conor Oberst from his self-titled album: Only Oberst, undoubtedly, one of the best lyricists of our time, could wrap up so much poignancy in the line “I know that victory is sweet even deep in the cheap seats.”

2) “Highly Suspicious” by My Morning Jacket from Evil Urges: As you know from Dr. Master’s post last month, this album was both unprecedented and yet somehow obvious. One may be tempted to think of Jim James’s Prince-like falsetto on “Highly Suspicious” as nothing more than ironic, but that would be a great mistake.

3) “Nashville” by David Mead from Indiana: No, this song was not released last year, but 2008 was my first taste of Mr. Mead’s bittersweet song catalogue, and “Nashville” is a quintessential example of how Mead poetically fuses the everyday with the angelic.

4) “Human” by The Killers from Day & Age: Are we human, or are we dancers? This swirling, anthemic single from The Killers seeks to answer that very question.

5) “Time To Pretend” by MGMT from Oracular Spectacular: How is possible that when I first heard this song I was already nostalgic for it as though I were listening to it 20 years in the future? If I could answer that question I would be able to explain why this song is so fantastic.

Musical Insight #1: Everyone’s Lives Will Benefit From These Five Albums

1) Seeing Things by Jakob Dylan: Finally proving my long-held theory that The Wallflowers were never as good as Jakob Dylan’s songwriting chops, Seeing Things is an undeniable testament to that old apple and tree axiom. On this 2008 release, Dylan delivers stripped-down acoustic ballads about good and evil, love and loss, and youth and age. “I was born in the summer of sam/ Smaller and sooner than planned/In the spitting image of a man/ Raised by wolves on the fat of the land/ Clear of romance, beauty, and damned/ Tomorrow will come if she can/ Just want a woman who can walk on a wire/ With a trembling glass in her hand.”

2) Blame it on Gravity by The Old 97s: How this album snuck under the radar of so many critic’s Top 10 lists this year is inexplicable to me. Frontman Rhett Miller is as deft a pop-song composer as you’ll find these days, and with The Old 97s he delivers an album that mixes alt-country swagger with power-pop recklessness.

3) The Fleet Foxes by The Fleet Foxes: This mid-year debut from Seattle’s Fleet Foxes prompted comparisons to everyone from The Beach Boys to Modest Mouse, and guess what—it lives up to the hype. It is surely rare to hear such tight, layered harmony these days.

4) Volume 1 by She & Him: Another darling album of the indy circles, this collaboration between M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel captured my heart over the summer with its post-Patsy Cline Americana. And having seen the act live on two occasions, I can tell you that the magic certainly translates. This was no novelty fluke, and I can’t wait to see what She & Him brings us in 2009.

5) Evil Urges by My Morning Jacket: I thought about it long and hard, but the more I listen to this album the more I love it. No one is delivering the type of tight, weird, sweeping rock and roll that MMJ brings on this record. No one. They are one of this decade’s greatest gifts and I am thrilled to be alive to accept it with open arms.

It is perhaps a tad ironic that the last entry on “Twenty Pounds of Headlines” in 2008 does not come from me, but instead from my first guest blogger. As both a good friend and fellow pop-musicaphile, I have been asking Joe Master to contribute his thoughts on 2008’s music scene for some time now. And in between working blinding hours at his editor position for a medical trade publication in South Jersey, taking his dog Eppie for long, contemplative walks through Collingswood, and recently getting engaged, Joseph has finally thrown in his two cents. And I’m thrilled.

As a note, 2009 will feature many guest bloggers as “Twenty Pounds of Headlines” begins to move from mere blog to online magazine. If you’re interested in writing (about anything and everything…with the exception of cats) please let me know. In the meantime, enjoy Mr. Master’s ruminations.

—ND

Why Is Joe Master So Highly Suspicious? The Best and Worst of 2008:

By Joe Master 

Joe Locked In A Cabin

I have a few bones to pick with this year’s rock and roll a la mode. If you add all those bones together you might be able to fashion a spine, or at least a few vertebrae. But even then, the apparatus wouldn’t be able to carry half the weight Jim James carried in 2008.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m no authority on well-endowed backbones. I once wrote a song called “Spineless Me.” I do, however, firmly believe that when dispensing titles like ”best” we should hold our fodder to the highest standards.

Like many of you, I listen to the selections on year-end lists hoping that I too can fall for ten albums that music critics got paid to fall for. But I rarely do. For instance, I don’t understand Animal Collective. Not even a little bit. In fact, Animal Collective makes me very uncomfortable.

So, it came as no surprise when most rock and roll literati chose not to favor My Morning Jacket’s Evil Urges with a top ten nod. It came as even less of a surprise, though, when they chose to offer Bon Iver’s For Emma, Forever Ago their first-born children. And the one thing that makes me more uncomfortable than Animal Collective is the thought of Pitchfork critics procreating.

So, I’ll spare you my thoughts on Dear Science and Tha Carter III and I’ll try not to Google-search too many obscure details to disguise the fact that, like most of you (excluding our hero, Mr. DiUlio), I have no idea what I’m talking about. So, let’s get down to business…

Imagine yourself alone in a cottage with a guitar, some recording equipment and seasonal affective disorder. The snow is falling, the walls are shrinking and the drugs aren’t working. Doesn’t sound like a very good winter, does it?

Perhaps I am discouraged by Bon Iver’s misery. Or maybe I’m just coming down with the flu. For Emma not only made me sad; it put me to sleep. If I had been able to stay awake long enough to hear the line in “Skinny Love” about cutting the ropes I probably would have been impressed by the pathos. Ok. I lied. I was awake. I heard the line. It’s a great line.

However, For Emma is not a great album. At least not top 10 great. It is a hauntingly fragile, beautifully textured collection of songs patched together by a man who no doubt has a heart worth revisiting and a falsetto worth multitracking.  But the scope of the narrative is towered by the hype. I mean, Mojo went as far as to proclaim: “isolation doesn’t get more splendid than this.”

What the hell does that even mean?

I really wanted to love For Emma. I wanted to bring it close, call it my own and connect with couplets like “only love is all maroon/gluey feathers on a flume,” but I just couldn’t. Especially after looking up flume in the dictionary and finding out that it is not a species of bird.

I get the point. It’s a cold-winter-day record, best played at low volumes beneath conversations with your intellectual friends—right? I dig the back-story, too. In fact, I dare say I find the Old Testament Bon Iver (Christian name: Justin Vernon) creation myth more compelling than the boring New Testament gospel.

Maybe I am just too painfully aware of all the ropes and pulleys. Maybe Blood On The Tracks ruined “break-up” albums for me years ago. But, after many repeat listens, I think I may have finally found an explanation for my apathy. I am supremely confident that if any of my closest consiglieri (Mr. DiUlio included) were to lock themselves in a cabin for a few months with Pro Tools and some instruments, they could produce a more dynamic, lyrically inviting, well-enunciated collection of tunes.

Retract those claws and minimize Pitchfork. Now, imagine yourself alone in that same Wisconsin cottage, just frowning away the day. Suddenly, there is a knock-knock-a-knocking at the door. Who could it be? Why…It’s Jim James. He says he’s here to help—that this is an intervention. Your mother probably sent him. So what does he do? He pulls up a milk crate, picks up your guitar and plays “I’m Amazed.”

When he is finished, he hands you the guitar and wishes you luck. He doesn’t have time to chat, he says, squinting at the horizon. He has to make it across the frozen river by sundown, or there will be hell to pay.

“Thank you, Jim James,” you say.

“It was my pleasure.”

As he vanishes down the river gorge it begins to snow, and you cry a little. What a beautiful winter, you think.

Now, I’m not saying that Jim James is some kind of musical deity. That would be ridiculous. But I’m not saying he isn’t from a different planet either. In fact, he probably is an alien. Either that or a soon-to-be Scientologist. But I have a confession to make: whether Evil Urges came from this world or the next, it is the year’s most promising, most beautifully crafted album.

More than any other record released in 2008, Evil Urges demands classification as a tour de force. From the brisk “Planet Telex” bass drum that opens the title track to the last hesitant breath of “Touch Me I’m Going to Scream, Pt. 2,” the album is equal parts interstellar tube-rock and subterranean bedrock. In fact, at one point—about three minutes and 40 seconds into the sublime “Smokin from Shootin”—James & Co. plug a pocket so perfectly that I swear you can hear the swish of two bodies fusing and shooting skyward, like lightening in reverse.

“Do you see my smokin’ guns?” James asks.

Yes. Yes I do.

Despite another depressing, yet less marketable back-story—apparently the band almost crumbled while recording the album in a somewhat larger cabin in Manhattan—the end result is uplifting and unabashedly inventive.  Jim James may sing like Kermit The Frog, but he has no problem being green. In fact, he appears so comfortable in his own skin that he bears it all. “Oh! You really saw my naked heart,” he sings on “Thank You Too!”, a song that comes about as close to pop perfection as I’ve heard in a long time. Rarely does Rock and Roll stumble across a voice that has the kind of idiosyncratic, emotive power to pull off what could easily collapse into a tired cliché. Usually, those voices belong to weirdos. And weirdos often lead us on the very best adventures.

Evil Urges is an adventure. It traverses the mountains and valleys of Rock, R&B, Country, Funk and Psychadelia without fitting the mold of either; all the while driving forward with an unwavering confidence—would it be too bold to call it Obama-esque?—that  somehow inspires a trust that sees us through any inconsistencies or odd right turns (and there are a few).

But some of those peculiar twists turn out to be the most memorable. I’ll even go as far as to assert that the devious giggles and falsetto squeal James unleashes toward the end of “Highly Suspicious” are the finest moments captured on record all year, both wickedly subversive and euphoric; everything Rock and Roll should be. Especially in crazy times like these.

I know what you must be thinking. I thought he said no Top Ten lists! Well, this is not a Top Ten. Not in the traditional sense anyway. I’m not attempting to outline the best (or worst) albums of 2008 here. Instead, I’m bringing you my Top Ten Musical Insights of 2008, which could include records as new as the Killers’s Day & Age or as old as Leonard Coen’s Songs of Love and Hate. Due to its length, this post will be broken up into two installment. So, let us begin with the first five…

Musical Insight #10: Rivers Cuomo is the Most Frustrating Man in Rock History

If I didn’t suspect he was doing it on purpose, I just might hate the guy. Or perhaps I do hate him precisely because I suspect he’s doing it purpose. Either way, Weezer’s eccentric and pricklyfinick front man set me up big time with the release of this summer’s self-titled, so-called “Red Album”, only to subsequently let me down in a brutal, cataclysmic way. And I’m not sure what to do about that.

The first time I heard “Pork and Beans,” the album’s standout track and one of this summer’s most enjoyable radio singles, I was driving home from a speaking engagement at Rowan University. When it finished, I almost pounded the steering wheel right off of its column with the force of my elation. With every failed attempt at a cohesive record since the last sublime strum of Pinkerton’s “Butterfly” resounded in 1996, it had been said so many times that Weezer was “coming back” that the sentiment had morphed into cliche. But this time, in the dark solitude of that rainy night, I truly believed it—because “Pork and Beans” kicked ass. All of the haters can just go to hell, I thought. This is going to be the album we’ve all been waiting for!

Oh how wrong I was.

Not only did the rest of The Red Album fail to live up to the potential of its wonderful single, it insulted the composition’s mother, kicked it in the teeth, and left it to die on the side of the road with flies buzzing around its head. This most recent effort from Weezer (despite the righteousness of the mustache and ten gallon hat) is as disappointing as an album can be; not so much because it is plagued by some dreadful songwriting (which it is), but more so because the record begins with such unbelievable promise and then takes a nosedive into a wretched sea of crap.

The first three tracks of The Red Album (“Troublemaker,” “The Greatest Man That Ever Lived (Variations On A Shaker Hymn)”, and “Pork and Beans”) are some of the best in Weezer’s extensive catalogue. They are raucous. They are full of bizarre, contagious life and pregnant with lofty power chords. And each of these three songs could easily stand as time-capsule-worthy examples of the sort of rock that Weezer, essentially, invented during its heyday. But what follows them are seven exceedingly lame tracks that had no business ever being released (with the possible exception of “Dreamin’”, if not for its saccharine bridge about meadows and bees and goslings at the river…yuck!).

Rivers, why must you torture us so? We know you’re a brilliant songwriter, so please stop littering your albums with mere fleeting teases of your greatness and get back to giving us the rock we all need now more than ever.

Musical Insight #9: Sadly, It Seems Beck is Not Aging Well

Just after the release of Beck’s The Information in 2006, my life entered what one might call a “difficult” period. Suffering from the bitterness of broken love and a subsequently broken engagement, an album that should have otherwise been a relatively carefree ride was inevitably tinged with the murky residue of my confused and darkened situation. It’s mashed up, post-modern rollick was a cruelly juxtaposed soundtrack to the reality I was living at the time, and as all great music is want to do, The Information remained a time capsule for me, a perpetual reminder of that particular chapter in my life.

This is not to imply that I begin weeping bitterly every time one of The Information’s tracks comes on during my iPod’s shuffle. I’ve distanced myself enough from those events now to enjoy the album despite its inevitable reminders. Regardless, one could say I had been looking forward to Modern Guilt before it was even an itch in Mr. Hansen’s musical pants, if for no other reason than to ally myself with another Beck effort minus the pains of my personal life. Little did I know Beck was going to bring so much of his own despair to the table this time around.

The criticism I most often hear leveled against Beck in my day-to-day conversations is that the majority of his catalogue is emotionally empty; that his beats are, at times, fun, but that his lyrics are nothing more than strange, Dadaist mashups of words that happen to rhyme and situations as random and meaningless as dreams (Seachange notwithstanding). On no other album is Beck more seemingly aware of this pop-caricature than he is on Modern Guilt. Consider a line from “Orphans”, one of the record’s standout tracks: “And how can I make new again what rusts every time it rains?/ And the rain it comes and floods our lungs/ We’re just orphans in a tidal wave.” In other words, Here’s a hint listener: I’m tired of blowing your mind.

Whether or not Modern Guilt succeeds in answering the most immediate question—namely, why is Beck so tired of this effort?—probably isn’t as important as one might think, because the album doesn’t concern itself with the journey. It concerns itself with the discovery. And what Beck discovers isn’t very encouraging. It’s a landscape of bones, ghosts, and chemical residues in the sky.

I’ve always maintained that Beck’s oeuvre has never been about ignoring the despairing elements of existence, regardless of how hapless his beats and lyrics may come across. Instead, it’s always seemed to me that Mr. Hansen has been all too aware of the existential confusion inherent in being alive, but that instead of composing murky lamentations to this effect he has taken the cultural and emotional residue of our time and thrown it against a sonic wall, where it can drip and coalesce like the paintings of Pollack. But where most of his songs have been a triumph over the chaos, Modern Guilt seems to be his first full surrender to it, and its a shame that Beck is somewhat unsuccessfully drowns in the weight of this surrender. His lungs are, indeed, flooded. The tidal wave, it seems, has taken him under.

None of this is to imply that Beck is no good at sadness and despair. Some of the best tracks on 2005’s outstanding Guero are concerned with just that. The thing is, on Modern Times Beck seems a little bored with himself and the world around him, resulting in an equally tedious record.

Musical Insight #8: Queen is So Much More Than its Greatest Hits

Several years ago I made a vow that I would never again purchase a “Greatest Hits” (or “Essential Hits” or “Very Best Hits” or “Very Best Greatest Essential Hits”) record for as long as I lived, so help me God. Sometime after college I was struck by the absurdity of the conceit (Steve Miller Band and Rod Stewart notwithstanding) and it occurred to me that these corporately packaged collections of sellable songs were an anathema to the artists they were supposedly praising. All things being equal, an album is a complete work of artistic entirety meant to be enjoyed as a whole. You wouldn’t buy a copy of “William Faulkner’s Greatest Chapters,” or “Van Gogh’s Greatest Brush Strokes.”  Why then has it become an acceptable practice to parse the work of musical artists into easily digestible bits?

Consider perhaps one of the greatest victims of this custom: Queen. I’ve got a homework assignment for you. Tomorrow, ask as many people as you can to name a Queen song that doesn’t appear on the band’s myriad greatest hits collections. Go on. Give it a try. Unless you’re friends with Chuck Klosterman, I will be very surprised if you come across even one person who can do this without the help of Wikipedia. And that’s a shame, because I have recently discovered that Queen wrote some pretty phenomenal songs no one has ever heard.

Two months ago I received an old, dusty vinyl copy of 1977’s “News of the World” as a gift (thank you Courtney). With the exception of “We Will Rock You” and “We Are The Champions,” the entire track list was foreign to me. Admittedly, I was dubious. I expected little more than a mediocre offering that would make me yearn for yet another spin of “Bohemian Rhapsody.” But after just one listen I immediately fell in love with “News of the World.” It’s a fantastic record. “Sheer Heart Attack” is punk rock I had no idea Queen was capable of. The bouncy, sometimes-trippy piano balladry of “All Dead All Dead” is as heartwarming as it is haunting. Freddie Mercury’s voice (which I often maintain is one of the most under-appreciated gifts to rock music) is in top form. And Brian May’s guitar is incendiary and as slashing as sunlight.

So drop off your copy of Queen’s Greatest Hits at Goodwill and start exploring this band’s entire catalogue. “News Of The World” is the perfect place to start.

Musical Insight #7: My Morning Jacket Is Way Weirder (and Way Better) Than Anyone Expected

Rather than compose an original blurb for this one I have chosen to reprint an e-mail I sent my friend Joe back in June when he asked me what I thought about MMJ’s recently released Evil Urges (which both of us loved). Please forgive its lack of refinement. I did not edit before pressing “send.”

Subject Line: Evil Urges, Brilliant Surges

Joseph…

Frequently, my friends and I play the “cover game.” You know, what artist would you like to hear cover what song? It’s especially fun when the artist is dead and the song is very contemporary, like Elvis doing “Hit Me Baby One More Time” or Johnny Cash doing almost ANYTHING by Lucinda Williams or Neko Case. But in this case I’m excited by the reverse, as I think no one vocalist today could lend a more interesting and righteous take on Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come” than Jim James. And it’s because of Evil Urges that I am having this sudden conviction.

I know a lot of MMJ fans may decry this album. Strike that. I know a lot of people who think they are fans of My Morning Jacket are going to decry this album, because anyone whose been following the band with any serious verve is probably aware that Evil Urges is the most logical (and most enjoyable) step this band could have taken. Yes, I fell in love with them the way most did, with It Still Moves’s “we’re playing from the bottom a well in a deep and mysterious forrest” sonic and lyrical vibe. Yes, I fell in love with the alt-country-meets-psychedelia spirit behind the music. But I believe the mark of any great and lasting artist is the pursuit of new territory, and when that new territory is arrived at and explored with as much solidity and self-evidence as MMJ does on Evil Urges, the pursuit (and the art) becomes sublime.

I think this album is fantastic. Sure, I was slightly thrown by the first three tracks, which sound like Prince on acid playing to the gods of some forgotten rock universe, but the surprise was perfection. I think “Highly Suspicious” is one of the best songs they’ve written. I think My Morning Jacket has always been a little more eccentric and weird than a lot of people give them credit for, and what makes it work is that they are such an incredibly tight band musically. The guitars are so sharp, so crisp, and yet still organic and meandering. And then there’s the vocals of James.

I think Jim James is perhaps the best rock vocalist performing today. What may have been dismissed as slight novelty in It Still Moves et. al. (lots of reverb and the like) were clearly the beginnings of a master vocalist just starting to get his footing. I thought he was almost there with Z—which was a departure in its own right—but what he began exploring in that album (his heart breaking falsetto, his capacity for neo-crooner spectral emotiveness) he takes to the next level on Evil Urges. And I love it. I’ve always held MMJ up as one of the true testaments to the next “phase” of rock music’s potential, and Evil Urges has confirmed my faith in this conviction.

So, what did you think of it? Please, feel free to disagree. I’m anxious to know your thoughts.

—Nick

Musical Insight #6: The Kids Are Not Alright

It was Thanksgiving morning 2007. A gentle fire crackled in the corner as my brother, sister, and I relaxed on the couch in our pajamas and watched the Macy’s Parade. It was all very cozy and Rockwellian. Ah, there’s Tony Bennett singing “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.” How sweet. Oh, and there’s Harry Connick Jr. crooning his version of “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas.” Delightful. And there’s three pre-pubescent teens dressed like new-new-wave emo brats pretending to play guitar while whining an auto-tuned version of some exceedingly lame ditty about the stresses of high school and taking the dog for a walk.

WTF?

“Oh god. Who is that?” I asked.

“I have no idea,” Erica said. “But ya know what would be really great? If the float they’re riding suddenly burst into flames and we got to see them running down the streets of Manhattan in a high-pitched panic with fire shooting out of their hair-sprayed heads.” Leave it to my sister to paint a delightful picture.

Sadly, there were no flames, and the float continued on its course unimpeded. No worries though. We figured life would go on as it always had and that this would be the last time we ever had to experience the torture of their wailing. Done and done. Little did we know how wrong we were, for those three little men turned out to be none other than the Jonas Brothers, and 2008 turned out to be nothing short of their ascension into the realm of pre-teen, boy band deification. If I had known back then how insane the Jo-Bro craze was to become, I probably would have driven up to New York that morning and lit the float on fire myself.

I won’t belabor the point, but the Jonas Brothers are evil. They are a virus that perpetually feeds on the hearts and minds of children everywhere, convincing them that the purpose of pop music is nothing more than to bring smiles to faces, flutters to hearts, and joyful tears to eyes. Their rebellion is false and their virtue a mere corporately sponsored caricature of banality. I fear for the future of our youth because of their ubiquity.

Look, I know you probably think I sound a little harsh here, but I’m actually being kinder than I would prefer, for the Jonas Brothers are the worst kind of assault against the sensibilities of young listeners, and a disastrous byproduct of the mass-media age in which we live. Like N*Sync before them (and The New Kids on the Block before them) the Jonas Brothers are pre-packaged, government sponsored rock, devoid of soul and meaning, designed to do nothing more than sell merchandise and push the bland indoctrinations of conformity masked as defiance. Our teenagers deserve better than this. They deserve rock music that begs them to question the assumptions of society and the platitudes of the authority around them. They deserve music that offends and upsets the order of things and causes parents to worry, if only just a little. They deserve rock that makes them feel genuinely alive, not heavily manicured pop garbage that fastens them permanently to a sinking ship of dutiful compliance.

But what the hell do I know. When I was 12 I was listening to Weird Al and Michael Jackson. Either way, my nieces and cousins are all getting a mix CD from their Uncle Nick this Christmas  loaded with the likes of Led Zeppelin, Sublime, and Dr. Dre.

How about we let Mr. Bill Hicks take us out on this one (and for those of you easily offended, you might want to think twice before pushing play)…

Lesson Number One: Woody Allen Is Still Brilliant (and Britney Spears Is Only a Lipstick Pig)

Whether these two assertions have anything to do with one another I am still not sure. But regardless of their probable mutual exclusivity they lead off the 2008 lesson series because they make me feel good. Really good.

First, the matter of Mr. Allen:

Praise be to Providence! Do you know how long I languished in perpetual fear that I had seen the last of the Woodman’s genius? Do you know how many nights I awoke in a cold sweat, shotgun to my head, thinking, “If he’s finished, shit, I might as well end it all right now!” It was hell I tell you. Hell! And it all began the morning after I saw Hollywood Ending in 2002.

I was a junior in college, impossibly enmeshed in film school, and desperate for any sign of life from a filmmaker I had come to regard as one of the greatest of our time. This picture, however, was not it, and everyone knew it. I walked into a coffee shop on Pine Street to meet my friend Sean Purtill for a morning cup of joe that day. He was smoking a cigarette and reading the most recent edition of the Philadelphia Weekly. When he saw me, he tossed the paper my way. “Did you read this yet?” He was referring to the review of Woody’s latest release.

What was he thinking? Of course I had read it! It was the first thing I did that morning. After rationalizing all night that what I had seen at the Ritz movie theatre wasn’t really that bad, I was fiending for confirmation from someone—anyone—that Woody wasn’t finished. Alas, every word of Sean Burns’s acerbic review only served to drive me deeper and deeper into a depression that lasted for weeks. Weeks! And my friend Sean took a strange delight in my misery.

If I may, an excerpt from Mr. Burns’s harsh missive:

“Right away you can tell something’s gone horribly wrong in Woody-ville, with all the characters shouting gigantic passages of repetitive exposition on top of one another and amateurishly fumbling with their lines. (I swear I caught a bit player glancing at a cue card.)…It’s also a grotesquely ugly picture, awash in harsh overhead lighting that makes the performers look like death warmed over. Naturally, this does little to dispel the ick factor inherent in the 66-year-old Allen’s painful penchant for casting love interests half his age.”

This review hung heavy over my head for six years. Six long years filled with the painful mediocrity of projects like Scoop, Anything Else, and (the almost decent) Melinda and Melinda. Even the hints of rediscovered genius that were evident in Match Point and Cassandra’s Dream couldn’t fully shake my melancholy. But just as I was beginning to go slowly into the night and surrender my hopes that Mr. Allen had anything else to offer me, he came up with Vicky Cristina Barcelona. And the heavens parted. And the angels sang. And Lazarus did the jig.

Sure, Vicky Cristina Barcelona may not wind up in the sacred Allen cannon alongside such masterworks as Annie Hall or Hannah and Her Sisters…but it should. Not only is it one of Woody’s most cinematically rich and organic pictures to date, but it also marks a turning point in a career that many of his harshest critics have deemed, well, predictable. Yes, Allen fans will certainly find familiar themes here. Psychoanalytic ruminations on love and art, anxieties caused by creative impotence, and an almost mythic obsession with the feminine mystique all abound in the film, but what marks Vicky Cristina Barcelona as an undeniably inspired turn for the filmmaker is the context and tone of its execution. More than any other Allen film to grace the screen in the last decade, Vicky Cristina Barcelona heralds the dawning of a shifting world perspective for the filmmaker, and it’s a pleasure to behold

Allen’s cynical, cerebral edges finally seem to be softening, and at the center of his perpetually melting exterior is (would you believe it?) poetry. Vicky Cristina Barcelona is a small, beautiful film that brings to mind gems like Francois Truffaut’s Jules et Jim, with European bike rides through cozy villages and intimate close-ups on candlelit lovemaking, all of it tinged with both the bitter and the sweet; the comic and the tragic. And while this film doesn’t seek to completely destroy the filmmaker’s perpetual obsession with the seeming futility of love and life, it does seek to make the blow a little less terrifying.

It’s not so much overt optimism on Allen’s part as it is a surrender to that which makes life worth living, regardless of the pain or disappointment or futility. I think back to the final scene in Manhattan, wherein Allen narrates into a tape recorder a list things that give him a reason to continue living. Groucho Marx. Cezanne’s apples and pears. The second movement of the “Jupiter” symphony. Well, if I were making a similar list right now, Vicky Cristina Barcelona would probably fall somewhere between whiskey and mint chocolate chip ice cream. It’s Allen’s greatest achievement in over a decade, and it has given me a reason to keep on going.

And then there’s Britney Spears. See, the most significant difference between Woody and Britney (well, besides the obvious…glasses) is that I wanted Spears to fail. Her decline in recent years has actually helped me sleep. And now it seems 2008 is ending with her accession, and that really pisses me off.

My sister Erica often jokes that should she make it to the age of forty, Britney will inevitably wind up snorting cocaine off the ass of a dead homeless man lying face down in his own urine inside a Turnpike rest stop. Whenever she says this I have a tendency to nod my head and make the types of sounds one usually reserves for agreeing with preachers. “Mm hmm. You said it sister. Testify!” That’s how certain we were of Britney’s inevitable collapse. We had made it into our own little mini-religion. And every time Britney’s train wobbled on the tracks—like when she started getting fat or when she shaved her head or when she started throwing her baby out of moving cars—Erica and I bowed our heads in reverence and gave each other little sadistic high fives. Justice—at least our twisted version of it—was being served.

You can imagine the extent of our disappointment then when suddenly, almost imperceptibly, Britney started making a “come back.” No! This wasn’t supposed to happen. This was not part of the plan. This was not what God wanted. We were just getting ready for the cocaine and the homeless man’s ass, not the shedding of pounds and the reclamation of positive fame! It was all so unholy. And who asked for this supposed “comeback” anyway? Was the world really a less enjoyable place without Ms. Spears?

Regardless of the answers to those questions, Britney’s reemergence is still rather sad. Just take a look at the following video, which shows Britney performing live on England’s “X-Factor” (“American Idol” with accents). It was supposed to be her leather-Elvis show. It was supposed to usher in the new age of Britney. Instead, the entire thing is marred by a vaguely pathetic sense of pale nostalgia. Every hip thrust, every flip of the hair, every (so very awkward!) clomp across the stage in a pair of ridiculous black leather boots whispers: Remember how much fun this used to be? Remember when I was naughty and dangerous? Remember?

Yes, we do remember, and that’s precisely what makes this whole “comeback” episode so odious. I have no doubt that the last two years have been severely, well, fucked up for Spears, but instead of alluding to the ways in which that time changed her, she’s giving us the same old tired tripe that got her to insanity land in the first place (which was stale and unoriginal even before she got fat). Spears is doing nothing to reinvent herself or give us anything that remotely resembles a sense of personal reflection. And I guess in that I am glad, because eventually she’ll go insane. And my sister and I will rejoice.

Oh, One More Thing…

As a post script to the above sentiment, I’d like to share a video that was recently sent to me. It’s a dance routine done by Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell to Cole Porter’s “Begin the Beguine” in 1940. As many of my friends know, I spend a lot of time lamenting the aesthetic decline of pop-culture and its fans. And just to be sure, I’m not talking about art here. I’m talking about pop-culture. There will always be great art, and there will always be great artists who toil away in perpetual obscurity. I get that. But I’m not talking about art. I’m talking about pop-culture.

I suppose the two are not always so disparate. Sometimes they collide. Take Shakespeare. During his time, The Bard was pop-culture at its best. Or how about the Beatles? See what I mean? But I digress. The point is, this number is incredible. Genius. American pop culture at a height of ingenuity and craft. No matter how much we swoon over the likes of Spears or Milee Cyrus or any other contemporary pop musical figure (Beyonce and her “All The Single Ladies” video probably notwithstanding…that’s actually pretty awesome), none of them will ever hold a candle to the brilliance of folks like Astaire and Powell. That’s not nostalgia or curmudgeonist history. It’s quantifiable fact. To quote Frank Sinatra (who narrates another version of this video): “Ya know, you can wait around and hope, but you’ll never see the likes of this again.” You said it Frank! Enjoy.

Here at Twenty Pounds of Headlines, I like to mix it up every now and then. Some days I’m all about long, expository diatribes concerning the virtues of legal prostitution or capitalist existentialism; and on others I feel like simply sharing a few interesting dispatches from that boundless, unruly universe we call “The Internet.” Since I gave you two lengthier pieces to digest this week, how about spending some time trolling a few of the following sites I discovered this evening while trolling for interesting story ideas. They each have their own fascinating tale to tell. You can thank me later for saving you the time of finding them yourself…

—Stumbleupon.com: This is where our journey begins, at a unique networking site I recently, well, stumbled upon. It’s kind of like Pandora for Web surfing, whereby a powerful “Recommendation Engine” takes note of your personal interests and then begins finding sites you might deem worthy of your wandering eyes. A toolbar is installed on your browser with a button labeled “Stumble!” Press it and a Web site pops up. If you like it, thumb it up. If you don’t, thumb it down. Apathetic, just push the Stumble! button again and up comes another site. The more thumbing you do the more specific the Recommendation Engine becomes, helping you sift through the infinite mounds of useless minutia that make up the World Wide Web, making you, in theory, a more discerning surfer.

—Meet-An-Inmate.com: There are some sites out there so dangerous to my productivity that they should be permanently banned from my browser. Meet-An-Inmate.com is one of those sites. This was one of the very first suggestions Stumbleupon sent me, and it took me over a half hour to move past it, captivated as I was both by these inmates’ respective personal ads as well as the nagging desire to begin writing to each and every one. Consider the petitions of Chuck, a 22-year-old from Oregon:

I enjoy music, reading, writing, food and philosophy.  For exercise I like to jog and lift weights.  I striver to educate myself in a [sic] all ways possible.  I consider myself to be open minded, and intelligent, most of the time.  I’m seeking correspondence from a wide variety of people.  I’m in prison for manslaughter and currently parole in 2029.  Though with a little luck and certain legal changes I’ll get out in 2015 instead. That’s all the info you get for now.  Write me and find out more.  I’m the inmate you want to meet!  “Happiness knows no victory too great”…

Or how about “death row teddy bear” Philip Jablonski:

I ask your indulgence ladies and gentlemen, and promise to be as brief as possible.  Allow me to introduce myself.  Death row teddy bear seeks female and male teddy bears.  Caucasian male, 62 years old, seeking an open minded female or male for unconditional/blunt correspondence on a mature and honest level.  Someone that has a caring heart to carry a special friendship built from the heart.  Let’s share thought and feelings (good or bad) as we learn about one another freely and watch the growth of our friendship bloom like a rose.  Let out [sic] friendship be strong like a castle wall which can’t be broken.  A loving heart is worth more than a mountain of gold.  Love to communicate on any subject or issue.  Love cats and dogs, horses, dolphins, teddy bears, and birds.  Interests: History, reading, professional artist, amateur poet writer.  Award winning essay writer and artist. 

I can’t imagine many fates more trying on an individual’s spirit than incarceration, and to be so immediately connected to those who are living that experience fills me with a host of emotions too numerous and complex to delve into here. Anyway, maybe you’ll be inspired to write. If you do, please let me know. I will certainly do the same.

—The Arrow of Time: If you haven’t ever read it, please check out Ernest Becker’s The Denial of Death (thank you Woody Allen). It’s a fascinating in-depth study of humanity’s subconscious denial of the one event that inevitably connects us all. The basic premise concerns the idea that we need to deny the reality of death every single day in order to function. If we didn’t, it would be impossible to keep moving forward. Our existential hubris in the matter—the silly, secret delusion we all harbor that out of the billions and billions before us, and the billions and billions of those yet to come, we are going to be the one who never dies—is as important to our preservation as oxygen. Necessary neurosis, if you will. I mention this book because The Arrow of Time will give you inevitable pause. Here’s the tag line:

On June 17 every year, our family goes through a private ritual: we photograph ourselves to stop, for a fleeting moment, the arrow of time passing us by.

It is a beautiful and melancholy meditation on the simple reality of our inevitably aging bodies, and trail of life they leave behind.

—A List of Unusual Deaths: Speaking of death, here’s a Wikipedia entry sure to make you utter a good ‘ol fashioned “What the fuck?” My personal favorite:

207 BC: Chrysippus, a Greek stoic philosopher, is believe to have died of laughter after watching his drunk donkey attempt to eat figs.

—Aerogel: Otherwise known as frozen smoke, solid smoke, or blue smoke, this stuff is just flat out unreal. And get this: It’s been around since 1931! Were you aware of this? Yeah, me neither. I want some for Christmas.

—The Cato Institute: Ah yes, let’s finish it off with a wonderful essay by Robert Nozick titled “Why Do Intellectuals Oppose Capitalism?” Considering recent statements made by Mr. Hank Paulsen regarding the government’s need to now rescue the American auto industry (um…are you kidding me?), this is worth a quick read. Even if you don’t agree with his hypotheses (and there are several with which I do not), there is some great intellectual meat to chew on here, most of which has implications beyond the singular concerns of either capitalism or so-called intellectualism. Consider:

The (future) wordsmith intellectuals are successful within the formal, official social system of the schools, wherein the relevant rewards are distributed by the central authority of the teacher. The schools contain another informal social system within classrooms, hallways, and schoolyards, wherein rewards are distributed not by central direction but spontaneously at the pleasure and whim of schoolmates. Here the intellectuals do less well.

It is not surprising, therefore, that distribution of goods and rewards via a centrally organized distributional mechanism later strikes intellectuals as more appropriate than the “anarchy and chaos” of the marketplace. For distribution in a centrally planned socialist society stands to distribution in a capitalist society as distribution by the teacher stands to distribution by the schoolyard and hallway.

Happy surfing.

“Are you insane?” my sister hissed.

I looked around the brunch table for understanding, only to find my mom hanging her head in despair. “I just got your father to come out of his coma,” she said, her head cast downward at her half-eaten omelet and cooling coffee. “And you just had to bring this up didn’t you?”

It was just after noon and we were gathered for brunch at the Flying W’s Avion Restaurant in Medford to celebrate my brother Tony’s 23rd birthday a week-and-a-half late due to his law school schedule preventing him from enjoying, well, anything besides law school. It was a cool, delightful, sunny morning in late autumn, but suddenly it seemed my question had cast a pall upon the proceedings. It was a buzz kill that could only have been topped had I just vomited on the table. “I may have to kill you,” Erica whispered under her breath. My brother just laughed while my father seethed a restrained seeth behind his gold-rimmed aviator Ray Bans.

I finally understood the problem.

***

Election night 2008 had been a prickly one at the DiUlio homestead. I visited my parents for dinner that evening and thought I would stick around to watch the returns. I thought it would be fun to see the night unfold alongside the two people most responsible for my political aptitude and passion. When I got there, however, my father, a devout, registered Republican, already seemed a little tense, even though not a single state’s polls had yet closed. I was beginning to question the wisdom of my decision.

“Where’s mom?”

“She’s a poll watcher tonight. She volunteered to watch the polls. To guard them. In Willingboro.” He said this as though my mother had decided on a whim to fly down to Darfur to host a tea party for rape squads. “She’ll be home around 8:30.” He paused over the pasta he was cooking in a large pot. “I’ll tell you what, this is not going to be good. Not going to be good at all.” I couldn’t tell if he was talking about my mother’s volunteer work, the election, or the pasta in the pot. It may have been all three.

After dinner I had a few calls to make, and when I had finished, a number of state projections had come in. Obama was in the electoral lead. My dad sat on the couch with a face that suggested his mind was already going down a list of possible ways to terminate its own existence. I think I caught him somewhere between gunshot to the head and slowly feeding himself to an office paper shredder. He didn’t say anything when I came into the room, just looked up slowly with more than a trace of both insanity and despair. “Not good?” I asked. He didn’t answer, just turned back to the Fox News broadcast and its incessant, gabbing heads of expert opinion.

I didn’t press the matter. Didn’t try to cheer him up or lend any “it’s not over yet” perspective. In 27 years, I have come to know that trying to interfere with my father’s modes of coping with an unpleasant situation can be like trying to take food away from a dog mid-chew. You just. Don’t. Do it. This was, after all, the same man who once took off a brand new Philadelphia Eagles sweatshirt after watching a particularly tough loss to the Dallas Cowboys, walked into the kitchen for a pair of scissors, and then proceeded to cut the garment into small strips he then tossed into the fire, one helpless, green strand at a time.

“I can’t believe he’s going to take North Carolina,” my father said. I took a seat next to him on the couch. “What are those morons down there thinking?”

“Well, look dad, first of all, they’re not morons just because they support a different candidate than you. And besides, North Carolina hasn’t even been called yet. So you can’t say he’s won North Carolina.” I looked at the fireplace and was pleased to see that it was dark and cold and fireless.

“Nicholas…he’s won it. Trust me.”

This was more or less how it went for the next hour or so while we watched the television and waited for my mom to return from her poll-watching duties, with every state that turned blue suddenly designated the moron capitol of America. When my mother finally arrived, she was in exceedingly bright spirits, her post-volunteerism glow radiating impossibly against the closing dark of my dad’s quiet rage. “It was really a beautiful experience,” she told us. “Just wonderful. I feel so uplifted right now. Apparently, everything is going very smoothly tonight. No problems with voting or anything like that. Very good to hear.”

I knew what was coming next. “Well, I guess you didn’t hear about the Black Panthers in Philadelphia tonight.” Oh boy. “They had billy clubs. Billy clubs, Elizabeth!” Here we go. “And they were trying to intimidate voters coming from coming in.”

“No,” she said. “I didn’t hear about any of that. And I don’t think it really matters.” My mom was getting dangerously close to her “keep bringin’ me down and I’ll take you down” tone of voice. My dad wisely backed off.

“Uh huh. Okay.” He went back to watching the returns and drawing further and further into himself as if there was a calm, magical land hidden somewhere deep in his body where a smiling John McCain was ready to welcome him with open arms and a smile that suggested, “Don’t worry Ed. Everything will be okay. Here. Come rest your head on my war-weary shoulder.”

***

Needless to say, my father never found that place, and once Ohio was called for Obama, the night was over. My mother had settled in with a glass of red wine and we both stole furtive glances at the mustached man beside us now rubbing his temples every two minutes and sighing a sigh that suggested the world was, in fact, about to come to an end.

“Are you alright, Ed?” my mom asked him. I could tell by the timidity of her voice that she was thinking about the burning sweatshirt incident too.

“No. I’ve got a splitting headache.”

“Well that’s ridiculous. You’re going to let this make you sick.”

“Too late.”

“Do you want a valium?”

“No.”

“Well look, relax. It’s not going to do any good working yourself up like that.” Then she whispered to me, “I’m really worried about him. He could have a stroke or something.” I patted my dad on the shoulder and rubbed his back. If there was an entry wound, I probably would have tried to suck the Democrat poison from his veins. He needed to relax. After all, how could I possibly deal with the fallout if my farther died because of this. Oh Nick, I’m so sorry to hear about your dad. How did it happen?

Well, it began with a simple headache on election night. And then he just stroked out as soon as they called Florida. Right there on the couch. Bam. He just lost it.

Who would ever take me seriously again?

Thankfully, my dad didn’t have a stroke. He just went up to bed, signing off with the cheerful adieu of, “Welcome to the People’s Republic of America. I hope you all enjoy socialism.” Before any of the speeches were made, before any of the confetti was tossed, before any of Oprah’s tears were shed, my father slept the sleep of one last denial, wondering if perhaps when he awoke the next morning news would greet him that a mistake had been made and that John McCain was the actual victor. Or maybe the entire affair would have been a dream. Or maybe aliens would have swooped down from the sky during his victory speech and abducted the senator from Illinois for purposes of interstellar probing. Just maybe.

***

But it hadn’t been a dream, and my dad’s face at brunch the following Sunday told of his resignation to that fact. Meanwhile, my sister still had murder in her eyes.

“You always have to be the agitator, don’t you? Always have to stir it up.” The thing is, Erica had a particularly significant stake in the matter and was no more anxious to talk post-election sociology than our dad was. See, she had made it known since September that she was going to buck the paternal Republican trend and vote for Mr. Obama. I knew how significant that was. I was there when my father found out about this conviction of hers, and the entire time I had my fingers on the ready to dial 9-1-1 because of how deeply I feared his head was going to erupt into a gruesome explosion of blood and bones right there on the spot.

“Hey, everybody simmer down.” It was time I started defending myself. The tension was getting rather ridiculous. “I was just wondering what grandmom thought about the whole thing, okay? The woman’s 92, alright? Aren’t you interested in that at all? This doesn’t have to be a whole big, freakin’ ordeal.”

Silence. All eyes were now on my grandmother; my sweet, little Italian grandmother who clearly had no concept of the war zone into which she was about to walk. “Well,” she started, diminutively, “I think some of his ideas sound very good. And—”

“I’m sure the Germans thought some of Hitler’s ideas sounded pretty good as well.” It was a muted retort from my dad, but everyone heard it. Thankfully, everyone also ignored it.

“Mom, I think he means what do you think about Obama being the first black President?” My mother was steering a sinking ship. “Does that mean anything to you?”

“Oh, well, yeah. It’s…well…I mean—” and here my grandmother looked to me. “Wasn’t there a black man back in the 1800’s or something who won the election?”

Good grief.

“Mom, are you kidding me?” My mother was doing all she could not to take her mother-in-law by the shoulders and shake some sense into her feeble frame. “Are you seriously asking this? You think we’ve had an African American president before?”

“Well, Elizabeth, I was just saying…”

My grandmother may be 92, but she’s neither unintelligent nor senile. She knows fully well that no African American man has ever been elected to the office of President. She knows the historic significance of what occurred on November 4, 2008. I like to think her confusion was nothing more than the result of being blinded by the maelstrom of DiUlio chaos surrounding her that morning over brunch. It could happen to anybody, really. I mean, if I were in her shoes, I probably would have begun wondering if the Oval Office wasn’t made of cheese and that it was once run by a cat named Ginger along with his trusted sidekick Twinkles.

After my grandmother’s 1800’s comment the conversation dissolved rather quickly. My dad began raising the inevitable right-wing, talk-radio-inspired topic of questioning Obama’s proper citizenship (a petty one, for sure) while my mom gave her mother-in-law an abbreviated lesson in American political history. My sister, all the while, continued shooting me dagger glances and whispering surreptitious threats—“Sleep gangsta style tonight brother. One eye open, one hand on the gun.”—as my brother took up his usual Swiss neutrality in the entire matter. Me, I just continued enjoying my plate of strawberry pancakes and french toast with whipped cream, laughing to myself about what an interesting four years it’s going to be.

It’s probably an obvious point, but the so-called “digital age” of pop music in which we presently find ourselves helplessly fixed has numerous drawbacks. Consider the veritable death of album artwork, for instance. A shame. The possible death of the album, for that matter, as a work of artistic entirety at the hands of easily plucked ninety-nine cent single songs also comes to mind. And what about liner notes? These seemingly superfluous bursts of an artist’s thoughts can provide revealing aspects about an album’s greater purpose otherwise lost on the casual listener. I think about this in light of Ryan Adams’ newest studio effort, Cardinology, which was released last week on October 28. Buried deep within a collage of lyrics, black and white photos, and painted clouds that scatter across the record’s jacket are Adams’ requisite “thank you’s.” The first one reads: “Thank you Universe, for connecting us one and all. Consider this music as a gesture of our appreciation.”

I mention this little detail because it speaks volumes about this record; and while I think the sentiment is quite evident in the music itself, reading the statement was a confirmation of a nagging suspicion I had harbored throughout my first few listens, namely that Adams is painting with unprecedentedly broad, musical and lyrical strokes here, each one aimed at battles for individual spiritual redemption never quite won and a struggle to listen for a voice from God never quite heard. It’s an ambitious effort that feels familiar when it works but foreign and forced when it doesn’t, making Cardinology one of Adams’ most perplexing and, sadly, forgettable showings to date.

Ryan Adams and His Cardinals

To put this in context, let’s first acknowledge another obvious point: Ryan Adams loves The Cardinals. No, he really loves them. The backing outfit of Neal Casal, Chris Feinstein, Jon Graboff, and Brad Pemberton has been with Adams off and on since 2005’s brilliant Cold Roses. In fact, Cold Roses, its 2006 followup Jacksonville City Nights, and this most recent album, were all released not as pure solo records but as works by the larger package known as Ryan Adams & The Cardinals. Much in the way Neil Young teamed up with Crazy Horse as a perpetual sonic compliment to his solo efforts, so Adams has indelibly married himself to The Cardinals’ remarkable ability to infuse his music with a broader complexity otherwise absent in his solitary arrangements. And his respect for these musicians with whom he plays is vast (and well deserved). Consider that in recent live performances Adams has been known to take a backseat to the staging of this band, hiding in the side shadows instead of bringing himself to the front of the stage. Here on Cardinology he does just that. Make no mistake, this is a band album, as Adams’ vocals and individualism play second fiddle to the quartet’s broader picture. Oh yeah, and lest we forget, the record is called Cardinology!

Before it was even released, the prospect of a new Adams effort bearing a title that gave serious props to his band was thrilling, as The Cardinals have leant wonderful compliments to Adams’ brilliance as a songwriter and composer over the last four years. Despite the critical disparity levied upon it, Cold Roses is as solid a work of brilliance as Adams has ever produced, and much of its success would not have been possible without his band’s significant contribution. But whereas that record’s two-disc sprawling ambition is peppered with nuance and character, Cardinology is plagued by overproduction and vagueness. It feels as though Adams is indeed trying to swallow the Universe whole; but he’s not savoring the meal. He’s choking on it.

The first four tracks are immediate indications of Adams’ intentions here, bearing optimistic tittles like “Born Into A Light,” “Go Easy,” “Fix It,” and “Magick.” On the first, Adams petitions the listener (himself?) to embrace the idea that we were all “born into a light/ we were born of light/ we were born into a light” and the promise that if you “heal your vines, eventually you’ll heal inside.” On track two he begs “go easy on yourself,” and while the subject of the lyric’s petition may very well be a specific lost love, the broader implications of the song are clearly aimed at the principle of individual forgiveness for ourselves and the mistakes we’ve made—a subject in which Adams, an infamous reveler in the sins of the flesh, is quite well versed. Look, I want to be lifted by these songs. I want to feel the redemption that inspired Adams to write them. But the obviousness of the message kills the rawness of the emotion, and that’s a shame. In other words, nothing in the entirety of these first four seemingly uplifting numbers comes close to achieving the absolution Adams realized with one beautiful line on Cold Roses’ “Magnolia Mountain,” wherein he sang, “It’s been raining that Tennessee honey/ So long I got too heavy to fly/ Ain’t no bluebird ever gets to heavy to sing.”

On “Fix It,” Adams is yearning to do just that. “I’d fix it/ I’d fix it if I could/ And I’d always win/ I’d always win/ I’ll always win in the end.” Casal’s chunky guitar riffs launch the track and set up the song for a quiet rebel swagger that sadly dissolves as the song meanders and collapses under its own weight (a problem throughout). On “Magick,” the album’s fourth track and obvious single, Adams picks up the pace and harkens back to his Rock N Roll days, only this time with more parts Oasis and less parts Green Day. Clocking in at just over two minutes, “Magick” is a quick, unassuming rollick that tells us to “turn the radio on/ So turn the radio up/ So turn the radio up loud and get down/ Let your body move/ Let your body sway/ Listen to the music play/ It’s magick, it’s magick.” I believe Adams here for the first time on the album, even though he can’t resist the urge to remind us of yet another Universal truism (“What goes around comes around”).

While the record never fully abandons the theme of Universe’s Greater Purpose Meets Individual Unrest, the remainder of Cardinology is somewhat less obvious in this regard; and when Adams familiarly opens himself up to the bittersweet conflict of yearning for enlightenment but meeting instead the silence of God and bedtimes spent alone, the results are far more interesting. Consider the semi-sleepy swing of “Let Us Down Easy,” wherein Adams admits that, “Every season I spend alone/ Feels like a thousand in my heart and in my soul” and that “Instead of praying I tell God these jokes he must/ Be tired of himself so much he must be more/ Than disappointed, Christmas comes we eat alone/ A pretty girl’s smile surrounds a pretty girl who/ Takes your order she yells it and cries alone in/ The backroom once in a while until it stops.”

Because so much of this album’s inability to triumph can be attributed to the overwrought sound of the band involved, it’s probably no coincidence that Cardinology’s most successful track is the one that features the fewest Cardinals. “Crossed Out Name” is a swelling acoustic number that finds Adams in the familiar territory of wandering darkened streets alone and yearning, once again, for home. It’s when he’s afraid (not scared), when he seems like he’s about to crack, when he questions his motivations and future, that Adams is often at his best. Consider the following reflection on solitude: “I wish I could tell you just how I felt/ I don’t pray I shower and say goodnight to myself/ And when I close my eyes/ I feel like a page…/With a crossed-out name.” Or the subtle perfection of the way he conveys new love with this: “I kiss her mouth and I know/ For everything there is a word/ For everything but this./ I like the dresses, the shoes, and the clothes./ And everything, you know, that goes/ With loving a girl I suppose.” Damn. That’s what Adams does better than any singer-songwriter in music today. He is at once both, you know, conversational and poetic. Oh how I yearned for more of that on Cardinology.

Another refreshing emergence from the muddiness of this record’s overproduction and thematic heavy-handedness is “Evergreen,” which leans on the whisper of Graboff’s deft pedal steel, Adams’ acoustic, and Casal’s tickling piano, all of which compliment the front man’s cracking, fragile falsetto. Again, I believe Adams when he sings here, “And maybe you’ll find someone/ To lay some roots down next to you/ Be more like the trees and less like the clouds.”

“Natural Ghost” and “Sink Ships” are potential alt-country teases that forsake their inherent possibility for understated greatness with an unwelcome mess of too many guitars, confused harmonies, and throwaway lines like, “Keep the faith, keep moving in time, with the music rolling in your mind.” Really Ryan? Come on man. You’re better than that. Sonically speaking, “Natural Ghost” in particular reminds me of the most egregious errors Adams made in producing Willie Nelson’s Songbird in 2006, an album that found Willie’s voice buried fathoms deep beneath the instrumentation (a sin for Mr. Nelson!) and the emotion of the songs therefore lost in the jumble. Consider that “Natural Ghost” feels anything but ghostly. What could have been an eerie, haunting ballad about rickety stairs and moonlight is reduced to one of the album’s most forgettable tracks.

To be sure, Adams achieves a refreshing musical and lyrical maturity with Cardinology, as he did on the preceding Easy Tiger in 2007, but his recent grasps at a steadier hand have not yet commingled fully with the wilder, unhinged efforts of his earlier works that, while often yielding more than a few duds (“Luminol” anyone?) also ushered forth some of modern American music’s most timeless compositions (“English Girls Approximately” or “To Be Young”). The shame here is that Adams seems suddenly intimidated to embrace his musical and personal demons the way he has so beautifully in the past. And it’s not that this album feels safe, it’s that it feel underwhelming.

In short, Cardinology is not what I expected; but then again, no effort from Adams is ever what anyone expects. After Jacksonville, fans and critics alike were poised for Adams (and The Cardinals) to finally inherit the dusty alt-country throne left vacant by Gram Parsons in 1973 and deliver a quintessential disc of pure Americana. But what did Ryan do instead? He came out with 29 less than a year later, a hushed, sleepy, dance-of-the-dead solo effort that veered significantly off the expected course. And then, two years later, Easy Tiger found Adams newly sober and suddenly harkening back to his 2001 Gold era polish, alluding to a forthcoming effort that would have finally silenced the fans and critics who have been begging for another “Rescue Blues” or “Answering Bell” since 2001. And this is what they get. Peculiar. In some respects, Cardinology feels like a necessary crossroads, a collision of Adams’ most recent history that will undoubtedly yield more greatness in the future, so long as he can start trusting in the Universe instead of trying to thank it so profusely.

BONUS TRACK: For an example of Adams and The Cardinals kicking some ass, check this out. It’s easy to see why Adams loves this outfit so much:

David Mead and the Post-World-Series-Election Hangover

Fade In: Interior. Nick’s Roast Beef. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Wednesday Night. 7 p.m.

The clocks have been turned back. Another hour has been saved. Second Street in Old City is dark and desolate and wet with rain. Just one week ago to the day this place was clamorous with the delirium of hundreds in the street weeping and clapping to everyone, to no one in particular. Just one week ago to the day this place was filled with what seemed to be potential for new birth. With beer-stained hearts on fire. With senseless love overflowing. With the careless inspiration only triumph can bring forth. Just one week ago to the day, Second Street was alive.

Just twenty four hours ago, Second Street was alive, brightened by the hope of change in America, of change in the city of Philadelphia, of change in our dusty, cynical hearts. By this time yesterday, Barack Obama was already on the doorstep of victory. By this time yesterday, everyone braced for the eventual collision of history and expectation. By this time yesterday, legions of the lesser angels of our nature seemed poised for destruction. By this time yesterday, Second Street was yet another temple at which we could all worship the deity of possible hope. By this time yesterday, Second Street was alive.

Now, sitting inside Nick’s Roast Beef, Second Street is tired and alone. The bar is virtually empty. No music plays on the speakers. The Phillies already seem a distant memory. Two small televisions hang from a brick wall. One broadcasts a silent, subtitled Charlie Gibson, who guides America through replay after replay of last night’s Presidential victory, parsing every second down to the fabric of the dress Michelle Obama wore on the stage. On the other screen, a prime-time Hollywood program silently displays a montage from a new Broadway musical staring Chazz Palminteri. The disparity of the two images seems at once both obvious and obscure. There is something that connects them, I’m just not sure what that is.

More than anything else, what strikes me is how exhausted I feel—how exhausted the entire city feels—overwhelmed by a month that went by in a blur and culminated in a championship victory for a beloved baseball team and the election of the first African American to President of the United States of America. In the course of just one week, both of these events took place, and there is an overwhelming, atmospheric sense that the peak of joy has been reached, and now we must all come down. We must all swallow the bitter sweet fog of the morning after.

That’s why we’re going to see David Mead at the Tin Angel.

Some friends of mine arrive and we share a few pints over talk about quantum physics and Mr. Rogers; over the previous night’s election and the virtues of ketchup; over getting old and electric cars; over cheesesteak hoagies and the small entertaining bits of our own personal histories only we find important or funny. I know we are children of this time, I’m just not sure what that really means.

When our rambling comes to a close we leave for the show. Two doors down we climb some narrow stairs and order some more pints. First to take the stage at the Tin Angel are The Sways, a Nashville-based husband-and-wife duo comprised of Carey Kotsionis and Adam Landry. Carey’s got her acoustic, Adam’s got his medicine-red electric, and just two lines into their first song I am struck by both the beauty of their harmonies as well as the undeniable pleasure of lines like, “Knowing what to wear doesn’t make you a lady/ Showing up at my door doesn’t make you my baby.”

It would be easy for me to call this duo a marriage between the Innocence Mission and She & Him, so I won’t. Instead, The Sways are a fragile little outfit with the icy edges of their tender sound rimmed in traces of southern attitude and rust. They’ve got California flowers in their hair, but they’ve also got dusty, Memphis boots on their feet. It’s sweet, American swaying, music perfect for the autumn and summer both. They are a pleasure to watch and I would recommend checking them out if they come to town again.

When it comes to the headliner, I am as ignorant as a man can be. Going into the night, I had only ever heard one, maybe two David Mead songs in my life; but the show came by way of a zealous recommendation from my friends T. David and Kristine Young, and since I trust their respective musical tastes so implicitly I figured it was worth the $12 admission fee. And friends, after sitting through an 90 minute set of this man’s music, I can honestly say that I would pay twice as much to see him again.

Oh that dastardly breed of man known as the so-called “Singer Songwriter” is everywhere, and usually I do not suffer him kindly. Look, he’s got a lot to live up to, so I think it’s only fair to be so critical. Every college-aged crooner strumming his acoustic guitar in a coffee shop or on a lawn full of pie-eyed ladies is cooing in the shadow of geniuses like Jackson Browne, Ricky Lee Jones, James Taylor, Joni Mittchell, Cat Stevens, or even Ryan Adams. It’s not their fault the genre has been so well mined, it’s just a fact. All of that being said, when David Mead takes to the cozy, dimly-lit stage at the Angel, my skepticism is tempered only by Dave and Kris’s admiration for him.

Now watch as David Mead lifts the glass statue of my vapid cynicism, hurls it across 90 miles of jagged rock, and allows it to shatter into pieces so small and numerous as to be indistinguishable from the air surrounding them. For the entire length of his set, I am as captivated as I have ever been by a performance. Mead is a master songwriter, crafting everything from bittersweet ballads about looking out of windows at girls walking away to traveling songs about rambling to lovers and friends in drivers seats as the landscape of America unfurls its lovely, lonely distances. He even covers “These Days”, giving an apropos nod to the man to whom I believe Mead is the obvious heir apparent.

Moreover, Mead’s stage persona is a delight. Irreverent, erudite, commanding, humorous, and humble. Watching him in the intimate confines of the Tin Angel feels like being part of a sublime secret. I look forward to nights that will surely unfold with Mead’s music lining the walls of my house and of the mornings over coffee and new love wherein his tunes will kiss the moment with the tenderness for which it begs. I’ve got him on right now, in fact, and I can think of no better soundtrack for coming down from the chaotic hand life has dealt me in recent weeks.

Check out this video of him at the Tin Angel in 2004:

Act I: Purgatory

It was a cold, wet Tuesday morning, and by the tone of his e-mail I could tell my friend Red Dog was not yet convinced. He needed some prodding.

I watched the slick, fast, frenzy of October’s rain prick the windows of my office, thinking about the purgatory of the situation. Of the night before when the entire city of Philadelphia seemed poised for a delirious rebirth. Of the men and women walking through Old City to their favorite watering holes clad in red and white and pale blue. Of their eyes looking to that place in the distance where victory whispered its seductions. Of the slate sky. Of the pints of beer we all consumed through five-and-a-half soaked innings of senseless hope. Of the clinical tarp eventually covering the field. Of the cruel Doppler Radar, flashing. And of each of us—the men with their clenched fists, the women with their sad eyes—walking back to our cars through the rain, heads hung low, not in defeat but in the dissatisfaction of having to wait even longer for our moment of triumph.

I sat in my office that Tuesday morning and thought about all of this—and also of the eventual conclusion to the game. I knew Red Dog had to be there when it happened. We had started this series together and dammit, we would finish it together as well. But I also knew it would be a hard sell. The two of us had already spent far too much time and money on this World Series, and in Red Dog’s case the sacrifice was particularly great. He’s a teacher, which means his alarm begins blaring around 5:30 in the morning, two full hours before mine even thinks about waking. He’s also a husband and a father, which means his energy output requires significantly more precise calculation than mine. Nonetheless, he needed to give it one more go. He needed to meet us at National Mechanics and finish what was started.

So I responded to his e-mail (which had the perfect subject line of “Raining On Our Parade”) explaining why I thought it essential that we take one last shot in the arm and head in to the city for the 3.5-inning conclusion of Game Five of the 2008 World Series:

Dude, that’s a great headline! I’m really surprised it hasn’t been used anywhere else…

So yeah, tonight is apparently suspended until tomorrow, to which I think, yes, I will be going out. Tonight will give me a much-needed rest and opportunity to get some things done. And my rationale for tomorrow is this: it’s only 3 1/2 innings, which means it won’t be too late/expensive a night. Granted, it could go into extra innings and last much longer, but that’s a chance I’m willing to take. I mean, the whole point of being out was so if they won it in the city we would be there! If there’s still a chance to experience that, I’m there. Had they lost and it was going into Game 6, well, that would be a different story and I wouldn’t be going out. But this is STILL GAME FIVE!!

Anyway, no worries if you can’t swing it man. I understand. Let me know. But come hell or high, raging waters, I’ll be there. And I will scream out into the night. And the city will ring with the echoes of our elation. And the curtain of our sorrows will be torn in two. And all will be right with the world.

Act II: So This Is What Pure Joy Looks Like

And so it was. After a few more persuasive e-mails, Red Dog decided to come out after all, and when Brad Lidge threw the final strike of the evening, the two of us did indeed scream into the night. And indeed the city rang with the echoes of our elation. And indeed the curtain of our sorrows was torn in two. And all is, indeed, right with the world.

What occurred after that game can scarcely be put into words, as Philadelphia erupted into a scene I have never before witnessed. Along with three of my closest friends (sans Red Dog, who had to go home), I walked up Market Street from Old City, getting closer and closer to the din rising from behind City Hall. It was the kind of juggernaut rumble only tens of thousands gathered in a city street can create…and it sounded glorious.

Finally reaching the pandaemonium, we saw the entirety of Broad Street pregnant with a sea of humanity. Shirtless men running up and down sidewalks, screaming until voiceless. Women whistling from windows. Trucks and SUVs loaded with dozens of rabid Phillies fans spilling out of the windows and doors. Beer and wine bottles littering every spare inch of gutter and curb. Stoplights bending beneath the weight of those who hung from them like mad gargoyles. Overturned planters. Sidewalk trees shaken by those who wanted to uproot a piece of the evening. Fireworks slicing through the perfect dark of sky to explode and rain their sublime fire upon the cheering masses below.

We stopped into a bar serving three dollar whiskeys and toasted to our team. We gave high-fives until our palms were raw. We called our loved ones and tried to paint the scene for them with hoarse voices and the distraction of car horns honking perpetually behind us. We bummed cigarettes and stopped into Nodding Head, where we enjoyed dark pints of sticky Grog and sang “We Are The Champions” and watched replays of that final pitch over and over and over again on a small television. We saw an overturned car on the sidewalk and some firemen at the end of the block trying to put out a small garbage can fire. We hugged the homeless. We made more calls. We took photos and stood on planters like warriors on hilltops of victory. We visited one last bar—the Locust Bar, to be precise—and swallowed down some lager, still watching that final pitch. Still delirious. And then we all went home and slept one of the most peaceful sleeps we had ever known.

Act III: Tears at Broad and Federal

I wrote in a previous post about how silly sport is, about how its triviality and inconsequential nature cause so many to feel apathetic about the thing but that these qualities are what make it so wonderful to experience. So while I realize the Phillies’ 2008 World Series victory is not going to bring about world peace or an end to global poverty, I also know (and admit shamelessly) that it was one of the most beautiful moments of my young life, and that I am forever going to recall its sublimity as fondly as I would any fortune to befall me. It is good and righteous without condition and I am thrilled to have been a part of it.

The Friday afternoon parade down Broad Street was a far tamer experience than the Wednesday evening that proceeded it, but its sunny, measured execution was the perfect denouement to a release 25 years in the making. It was a moment of unhindered positive vibrations, of love overflowing, of new tides coming in for the city of Philadelphia and everyone who was there to see the moment unfold. Leading up to the afternoon, I wasn’t sure how it was going to feel once I finally saw this team I had been watching all my life finally showered with the unconditional attention all champions deserve. But then the parade made its way down to our post at Broad and Federal, and I had my answer.

Leading the caravan was the Philly Phanatic, and when his green, fuzzy paws became visible over the thousands of red heads bobbing up and down in frenzied elation all along Broad Street, I suddenly realized I was about to start crying. This was totally unexpected and I immediately tried to hold back, tried to tell myself how silly it would seem to have a grown man weeping in the streets over something as superficial as a baseball team; but then I realized how ridiculous the reasons for my resistance seemed and I let go of my insecurities and the tears started to flow. It wasn’t just the joy of the victory, or even the overwhelming sight of thousands gathered for this singular purpose, that brought me to tears. It was the Phillies game my father took me to see at the Vet when I was eight. It was watching the 1993 World Series in my childhood best friend’s basement at the age of 12, back when it seemed baseball was the only concern worth caring about. It was the baseball my entire family signed when I turned 13. It was Eagles football by fireside while my parents trimmed the Christmas tree. It was backyard home run derbies with my little brother, both of us wishing for the impossible. It was catches with my father in that same backyard. It was the watershed of 27 years coming to me in a flash of raw, unstoppable emotion at the hands of a silly, sarcastic mascot. And it was beautiful.

Thank you Phillies. Thank you for all of this. It is without a price and it will live forever in the hearts and minds of millions. Thank you.

Editor’s Note: Upon receiving this month’s Esquire magazine, it occurred to me that I had been unconsciously lifting the “Endorsement” tag from this great publication I respect so much. So, while imitation is indeed the sincerest form of flattery, it can also be a harbinger of unoriginality and plagiarism. Therefore, from hence forth, I will be titling all of my endorsements with the tag “Let Us Now Praise…” I know you were all losing sleep over that one. So, on to the praise…

Little Bits of World Series Joy:

—John Oates’ Rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner”: Maybe it was the pre-game buzz of being on the verge of a possible Phillies championship victory. Maybe it was the post-beer buzz of a few stellar IPAs at National Mechanics Bar in Old City. Or maybe it was just the welling up of a general soft spot I’ve had for Daryl Hall’s better half ever since I interviewed him for South Jersey Magazine last summer. (Did you know he breeds Alpacas in Colorado, or that he was a fairly close acquaintance of the good Dr. Hunter S. Thompson?) Regardless, there was an understated quality to Mr. Oates’ “SSB” I found severely likeable. As both an unyielding patriot (hmm…) and amateur student of professional sports, I’ve become quite familiar with this little ditty we call our National Anthem, and in doing so I have realized the most significant sin most crooners commit in singing the song is that they simply overdo it. To be sure, the “Star Spangled Banner” is not an easy tune to render. In fact, I’ve heard many musician friends of mine muse that it is “one of the hardest songs to sing” due to its wide range and awkward phrasing. In short, it’s no “Happy Birthday.” But this doesn’t have to be so problematic if only more would take a cue from Philly’s own J.O. and play it down.

Look, the lyrics don’t require all that much bravado. You’ve already got rockets with red glare, bombs bursting in the flippin’ air, and one hell of a perilous fight. You don’t need a voice competing with that imagery. Moreover, let us not forget the more tender moments of the hymn. A dawn in its earliest light. A twilight in its last moments of gleaming. A flag that is still barely there. Like the overall narrative of our country’s Revolution, “The Star Spangled Banner” is not a call to arms but instead a quiet moment of triumph, a possible hint through the haze and horrors of war that maybe, just maybe, we will prevail after all. It is in this interpretation that we will realize the song’s poetry, and it is in this discovery of our anthem’s inherent humility that we will continue to understand why it is so befitting a nation that should always be mindful of its fragile grip on the righteousness of its foundation. Thank you John.

—Joe Buck: At first it was a small, innocent comment made by an acquaintance of mine. “Aw man, I hate Joe Buck.” Um…what? Then it was the dude next to me a Brentons, a semi-dirt rocker bar off 206 South in Shamong. “That asshole doesn’t know what he’s talking about!” He was referring, of course, to Joe. The final straw was a chant that spontaneously erupted at National Mechanics in Old City on Monday night somewhere between the first pitch and the first monsoon. “Fuck Joe Buck! Fuck Joe Buck! Fuck Joe Buck!” I think you know to whom they were referring.

Look everyone, stop hating on Joe. What, exactly, is the problem? I know some of you think he wanted the Phils to lose against the Dodgers in the NLCS. I know some of you think he wants us to lose now. And I know some of you think he’s just too polished and expensive-suited to be endearing to the rough-edged, sweat-panted Philadelphia sports fan sensibility. Well, get over it. I don’t really give a toss about these (quite absurd) speculations because guess what? Buck is one hell of a good sportscaster. As the son of Hall of Fame sportscaster Jack Buck, Joe has been covering baseball since 1991 when he was a play-by-play man for the then-Louisville Redbirds, a minor league affiliate of the Cardinals. He’s the thinking man’s caster, a guy who knows that sometimes what isn’t said can be just as powerful as what is. He lets the best moments just happen; and by the way, he could probably run baseball knowledge circles around those daft Philadelphia critics shouting their displeasure down Passyunk Avenue.

—At Least It Wasn’t An Earthquake: Sure, it’s a weird World Series. Sure, it sucked to get rained out on Monday night. But guess what, it could have been the ’89 series, wherein play was put on hold for 10 days due to the Loma Prieta earthquake. Now that would really suck.

—Watching Sports In A Bar: Typically, I shun the sports-in-bar experience. The drink are overpriced, the fans potentially obnoxious, and the food cold and mediocre. Nine times out of ten, I’ll take the couch. But I’ve watched every game of this thrilling series in some sort of watering hole, from the opening game at the Manayunk Tavern with my best pal Red Dog to the (potentially final) game tonight at National Mechanics. And I’ll tell you, I wouldn’t have it any other way. When the series is complete, I intend on composing a retrospect here of my total experience (which came to me in a feverish, collage flash of imagery last night as I was falling asleep), so I will save many of the detail until then. The bottom line is this: You will meet more characters and feel more raw energy in watching an important sporting showdown in a bar than you will at Burning Man. I’m hoping to be in the eye of the storm tonight…

—Watching Sports At Home: Because there are always a few drunk assholes ready to wreck the experience.

—This Guy’s Face:

Oh god...please!

I found this on the New York Times’ Web, and I think it speak for itself. Isn’t there a little of him in us all?

GO PHILLIES!!!!

Surely you’ve seen this already. No? Well, if you haven’t, it’s worth a quick watch. Creepy? Um…yeah. Manipulative? Certainly. A little downright frightening? Hell yes. Look, I’m not about to launch into a ridiculous tirade about how Obama is the anti-Christ, or about how, if elected, he’ll use the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse to lead the way in his inaugural parade. I’m still not even sure who I’ll be voting for come November 4th. But stuff like this is enough to drive me to write in Darth Vader.

These are children! Not voters, not adults…children! Whoever thought this was an acceptable idea ought to lose whatever leadership role he or she ever had over kids. This is brain-washing propaganda, a thoughtless indoctrination of individuals who have not yet developed the capacity to think critically outside the influence of the adults who fill their limited world view. The more I think about this, the more furious I get. In fact, it’s happening right now. As I type. You can’t see it, but I’m furious!

Oh, and one more thing: Can we all come off this implied, precious, saccharine, Kool-Aid guzzling bullshit that Obama is some sort of spiritual savior of the world! He’s a candidate running for office. Can we please treat him as such, and allow the potential virtues of his leadership abilities to make themselves evident over the course of his Presidency (should he be elected) instead of thrusting as-yet undeserved greatness upon him? We’re acting like a bunch of fucking zombies! So please…snap out of it! Or we’re looking at more videos like the one above.

Here’s the situation: San Francisco is on the verge of becoming the first U.S. city to decriminalize prostitution. And here’s the question: Why the hell not?

Trolling the Drudge Report tonight, I came across an interesting link to a news story about a ballot initiative, Proposition-K, that will be up for a vote next month in the city of rice and fog. If passed, the measure would forbid local authorities from investigating, arresting, or prosecuting anyone for selling sex. It would not, the article goes on to say, technically legalize prostitution since state law prohibits it, but it would eliminate the power of local law enforcement officials to “go after” prostitutes.

Oh yeah, and one more thing: The measure would likely free up $11 million the police spend each year on arresting prostitutes. Come on everyone, do your best Dr. Evil with me. That’s eleven meellion dollars…a year! Do the math. That’s a lot of bank, folks.

Look, for those of you who know me, an endorsement of this measure will probably not come as a surprise, as I have always been of the mindset that our government (locally and federally) already possesses far too much control over the degree to which we can exercise our inherent, victimless vices. I have long been of the mindset that this control is not only insulting, dangerous, and severely hypocritical, but also a provenly absurd waste of time and resources—and I believe precedent is on my side here. For an example, simply survey the effectiveness of the so-called “war on drugs.”

This multi-billion dollar effort on the part of the United States government has not yielded any quantitative decrease in the use of drugs in this country and has only served to continually drive up the financial and criminal consequences of an inevitable black market and the criminal activity it inspires. It has overflown our prisons with unnecessary inmates, ruined the lives of those who need help (not jail) and wasted our tax dollars in the process. And why? Because the pale, ignorant, ghostly bastards and bitches who roam the halls of Congress like moaning spectres of intolerance are beholden to the monstrous masters of the money that flows in and out of their fusty campaign offices like endless blood down a drain. There are no principles at the core of these efforts to wage witless wars on our so-called depravities. There are no convictions at the center of these ineffective laws that seek to limit what we, as free individuals, can and cannot do at our leisure. If there were, the NFL’s chief sponsors would not be beer companies. If there were, pharmaceutical companies would not be bombarding our prime-time television hours with myriad chemical solutions to spiritual problems. If there were, we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now.

But I digress.

Look, the philosophy of just and righteous law is based on the necessity to govern a society in as much as that society wishes to legislate and live within the basic tenants of universal morality, and the first (and probably only) tenant worth considering in this regard is how our individual behaviors affect others not voluntarily associated with the choices we make. Speed limits exist because the roadways are public spaces filled with individuals who should not be forced to inherit the potential dangers of others driving recklessly. Murder is illegal because no one has the right to take another individual’s life without his or her consent. Rape, theft, drunk driving, witch hunting—all of these actions are illegal because each of them involves the victimization of an innocent individual. Drug use, prostitution, euthanasia—these, most certainly, do not.

To be sure, I am not in favor of the decriminalization of prostitution because I endorse the practice itself (no more than I am in favor of the decriminalization of certain drugs because I partake in them). My support of measures like Proposition-K is grounded in a belief that a society is not fundamentally harmed or devalued because of individuals who choose to engage in behaviors that, while potentially not in line with my own standards of character, have no direct impact on the course of my life. In other words, if my next door neighbor is visited by a different prostitute every night for the rest of his life, that action does not affect my life in any measurable way.

Now, I can already hear the rebuttals: But Nick, prostitution leads to a dangerous and damaging lifestyle for countless women every single day, and the legalization of the practice would only further encourage that spiral of desperation and damage! And to that, I ask a very simple question: Has the historic illegality of prostitution lead to its demise? The answer is no. They don’t call it “the world’s oldest profession” for nothing. And if we are resigned to the inevitability of its continuance (and really, I don’t see how we can’t be), shouldn’t we strive for a system that “legitimizes” and regulates this potentially dangerous profession in order to make it as safe as possible? Since there will always be women (and heck, I suppose men as well) that choose to earn their living through the sale of sex, is it not morally imperative to provide them with the protection they deserve?

And to the point that legalization inevitably encourages previously illegal behavior, I ask  another question to those of you who have never sought out a lady (or gentleman) of the night: Is that because it’s been illegal? I am willing to guess the majority of you would answer “no.” Speaking from my own experience, the reason I have never been with a prostitute has absolutely nothing to do with its illegality. I’m 27 and have lived in a major city several times throughout my life. If ever I wanted to purchase sex, I certainly could have. Without trouble. But I didn’t. Not because it was illegal. Not because I feared getting caught. But because I did not think it was right to do so. This is the standard of character and personal integrity toward which we should be striving as a society, and no amount of legislation will ever be able to bring that about. I have heard it said many times that the true test of a man’s character is what he will do when he knows no one is looking. Note that the government’s watchful eye plays no part in the truth of that axiom.

It is a dangerous and slippery slope down which we slide when we endorse legislation based not on the potential victimization of a behavior but instead on the relativistic and shifty ethical concerns of a few in power. Prostitution is as victimless in its execution as the publication of a particularly incendiary novel or piece of journalism. It is as wholly harmless to a society as a work of disagreeable art. Would we not shudder at the thought of our government prohibiting these expressions? Why then do we not shudder at its odious assumption of moral authority when it comes to matters of individual sexual choice?

Here’s to hoping Proposition-K passes next month, as it will make this country a safer and more humane place to live.

This weekend, Sarah Palin herself (her actual, non-ironic, non-Tina Fey-ized self) showed up on the sketch comedy program, once as the show’s opener and again for a particularly bizarre spot on “Weekend Update.” In the first, we find Palin actually witnessing Fey mid-impression, watching a fake press conference with Lorne Michaels backstage. In and of itself, the moment gets a chuckle, but what brings it home is the sudden appearance of Alec Bladwin, who mistakes the actual Palin for Fey’s fake Palin. Baldwin then proceeds to tell Michaels that he finds it unconscionable that he would allow Fey to continue impersonating a woman who “is against everything we stand for.” Michaels allows Baldwin to continue his tirade against Palin before finally setting the actor straight, at which point Baldwin faux-stumbles over himself before adding, “You know, I must say…you are much hotter in person. I can’t believe they would let her [Fey] play you.” He then takes her arm and leads her on a tour of the studio, eventually ending up at the set for the fake press conference. Check it out here:

The second skit is where things get surreal. As the last sketch for “Weekend Update,” Amy Poehler launches into a Sarah Palin rap, the details of which I will not spoil for you in type. You must simply watch it. But when you do, ask yourself the question I am asking myself right now: Is this a moment where we are laughing with Palin or at her? And, more importantly, does Palin even know the answer to this question?

more about “The Palin Paradox”, posted with vodpod

Tonight I bring you the beauty of contemporary juxtaposition, a dual endorsement that marries perfectly the old and the new. First, the old…

“Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically…”

I recently finished reading “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” by D.H. Lawrence and cannot let another moment go by without encouraging anyone who has not yet read this novel to do so. Immediately. Written by Lawrence in 1928, the book was not published in Britain until 1960 due to the swirling controversy surrounding both the language and themes expressed in its pages. The plot is simple enough: An aristocratic, intellectual (Constantine Chatterley) finds herself in a passionless (loveless?) marriage several years after her husband returns from World War I paralyzed from the waist down. In her quiet quest for wholeness, Lady Chatterley becomes involved with one of her wealthy husband’s groundskeepers and spends the rest of the novel wrestling with the principles of devotion to her husband as weighed against the pull of organic, uninhibited passion.

As I read it, I continually had to remind myself that this novel was written in 1928 and not last year, not only because it so liberally tosses about words like “fuck,” “orgasm,” “ass”, and (oh, shudder!) “cunt”, but also because its sociopolitical themes are so incredibly contemporary. It’s unfortunate so much discussion surrounding this book concerns its more salacious moments (and believe, there are plenty), because on the whole, the novel is about so much more. It is one of the most humanistic stories I have ever read because the primary question it asks over and again is this: What makes us whole? In it you will find contemplations on sex disguised as love and love disguised as sex; socialism vs. capitalism; property and wealth as religion; the virtues and damnations of solitude; and so much more.

I picked up my copy for 50 cents at a local used book sale, and while you may be tempted to think the fusty nature of its cover makes it hopelessly dated, fear not. You are in for quite a radical treat.

And now, the new…

If you have not yet picked up a copy of TV on the Radio’s newest release “Dear Science,” do so. Now. When I first started hearing about this band four years ago, I was admittedly cynical about its supposed brilliance. The ceaseless, ubiquitous implication that everyone should be listening to these guys started feeling like a mother wagging her finger because her son will not eat his peas. I almost didn’t want to like them in spite of their acclaim, but once I realized this was an absurd feeling to have I opened myself up to their influence and have not looked back since.

“Dear Science” is one of the most solid and enjoyable records I have come across in the last year. This band blends emotive lyrics and melodies with crunchy, post-industrial electronic soundscapes so seamless as to make it sublime. Have a listen for yourself and tell me what you think. If you’re looking for a soundtrack to the age in which we live, “Dear Science” is a great place to start.

\”Halfway Home\” by TV on the Radio

[audio http://wpcom.files.wordpress.com/2007/01/mattmullenweg-interview.mp3]

88.5 XPN began it’s annual countdown this week, so I think it’s an apt time to repost one of my earliest entries from this summer. Why? Because it outlines precisely why this countdown is, well, kind of a dumb idea. Let me know what you think…

ORIGINALLY POSTED JULY 29, 2008:

For those of you not keeping score at home, it’s been a few days since Post Number One. Days pregnant with the pressure and tedium of deciding what Post Number Two was going to concern. Throughout that time, I kept making subtle promises to myself that it would not be wasted on the banal or superficial. That the post would center on a “big idea”, like the recently dreadful irresponsibility of the media as it pertains to the status of America’s economy; or that maybe it would elucidate the virtues I have recently discovered are inherent in the act of walking; or perhaps it would poetically eulogize Tony Snow, or maybe showcase an exciting and exclusive interview I had with Beck, wherein we discuss everything from Scientology to his new album “Modern Guilt”. But after all the internal haranguing and wringing of hands, I have finally settled on a topic—and, ironically, it concerns perhaps one of the most superficial creations of modern times: The countdown list.

To put a finer point on it, the particular list I’m thinking about right now is 88.5 WXPN’s forthcoming countdown of the “885 Essential XPN Songs.” No, this is not a matter that will make or break the evolution of mankind for centuries to come, or one that will most likely even register on your radar of importance so much as five minutes after you’ve finish this reading this. But when I heard this countdown theme mentioned on the radio yesterday morning while I was enjoying a delicious bowl of Craklin’ Oat Bran, my body responded as I would imagine it would were I having a stroke. And this was when I knew the issue could not be avoided.

To be sure, the fact that I would even express of modicum of concern over this matter—let alone care enough to make it a post on my blog—says more about me than it does about the countdown itself. But life is full of moments when one is forced to decide whether or not he will be the bigger person and ignore an evil obviously lesser than the strength of his own character, or give into the temptation and wage a losing battle against a pettiness sure to make him seem smaller than he was at the start. In this case, I have sadly succumbed to the temptation. I have chosen to wage a very silly war.

Without equivocation, I adore XPN. If the radio station were a woman (and personally, I think she would look something like Natalie Portman), the two of us would have been married for almost ten blissful years by now, with a beautiful brood of talented, ambitious children to boot. To extoll its innumerable virtues here as one of the greatest radio station in the tri-state region would be a waste of both our times. But if thiswere a marriage, the countdown about to occur would most certainly send us both into counseling (or force me to cheat).

The extreme guilty pleasure I derive from countdown lists is no secret to those who know me. I can recall numerous evenings as a child when, during dinner or after brushing my teeth, I would casually posit questions to my mother or father such as, “What are your top ten favorite scary movies of all time?” Or, “Who are the five worst worst quarterbacks in the NFL?” I didn’t know it at the time, but thinking back on those moments now, I realize forcing my parents to categorize their preferences so succinctly was just another way for me to make sense of an increasingly chaotic world. In other words, it was impossible for me to conceive of a universe wherein Bob Dylan was no different than Jimmy Buffet, or Joe Montana was no different than Randall Cunnigham. Such a world would be unjust and insane, and I needed my parents to assure me this was not the case.

At the age of 27, the situation is no different today. I still engage in endless debates with family and friends over the qualification of artistic brilliance; and while in a few rare cases these melees of personal opinion have almost ended friendships (“Rush vs. Zeppelin 2003” comes to mind), most are superficial, forgettable, and, in the eternal scheme of things, a waste of time. But they are one my dearest addictions, and I cannot give up the habit. For this reason, I was quite excited when XPN announced its “885 All Time Greatest Songs” countdown in 2004 (in my opinion, “God Only Knows”). I was doubly excited in 2005 when they launched the “885 All Time Greatest Albums” marathon (in my opinion, Houses of the Holy). And I was giggly as a schoolgirl for the “885 All Time Greatest Artists” countdown in 2006 (in my opinion, Bob Dylan). But then, in 2007, desperate to keep the trend going, the station took a turn for the worse and started tallying the ridiculous list of the “885 All Time Greatest Musical Moments.” What the hell does that even mean? Music is not defined by it’s “moments.” It’s defined by its music! (And even if it were, why wasn’t “The birth of Mozart” number one on the list?). Now, in 2008, XPN goes and dives right into its own nascent pool of pretension and lays this egg on us. It’s a crime against the righteousness of the countdown art form—and I cannot abide.

As I said at the outset, it’s a silly war to wage; and to be sure, XPN is so transparently reaching in this case that its absurdity needs little exaltation. But I could not let the moment pass without crying out with my displeasure. On it’s Web site, XPN claims this countdown is supposed to highlight “the tracks that are at the heart of the XPN listening experience.” But since XPN prides itself on being relatively genre-less (which is kind of a lie anyway, since I can’t recall the last time I heard them play something from Mos Def or Rage Against The Machine) doesn’t it seem absurd to ask people what songs are “at the heart of the XPN listening experience”? Not only is it self-absorbed and severely affected, but it’s also no flippin’ fun. Arguing about albums or musicians or songs gives a person the thrill of taking ownership over the art in his or her life. This does not. Imagine the conversation:

“Yeah man. I think the most quintessential XPN song is ‘A Case of You.’”

“Hell no! How can you say that? There’s no way ‘A Case of You’ is more XPN essential than ‘Into the Mystic!’”

Bullocks.

The XPN “experience” is about the sum of its parts, not the parts themselves. I listen to the station because that experience includes everything from The Hold Steady to Bjork to Jackson Brown to James Brown to Sigur Ros. I can’t reduce it, nor would I ever want to. Debating the “885 All Time Greatest Songs” over a few beers is thrilling and reckless. Debating the “885 Essential XPN Songs” sounds about as exciting as arguing over the best way to cook asparagus, or why she really still is just “Jenny from the block.”
]]> http://nickdiulio.wordpress.com/2008/10/16/xpns-most-essential-mistake-a-repost/feed/ 2 Nick http://nickdiulio.wordpress.com/2008/10/16/holly-crap-were-going-to-the-show/ http://nickdiulio.wordpress.com/2008/10/16/holly-crap-were-going-to-the-show/#comments Thu, 16 Oct 2008 14:22:50 +0000 Nick DiUlio http://nickdiulio.wordpress.com/?p=70 ]]>  

Oh how sweet it is...

I can’t believe it. I really can’t believe it.

Oh last night. Last night was quite a night, folks. Last night witnessed not only the third and final debate between United States Presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama, but it also saw the fifth (and eventually final) National League Championship Series game between the Los Angels Dodgers and the Philadelphia Phillies. And which of these two events did I watch? Which one got the pleasure of my attention? Which one captured my heart?

THE PHILLIES OF COURSE!!!

Going into game four, I was slightly conflicted. Before the first pitch on Monday night, I didn’t yet know where my fidelity would eventually fall in game five. I had illusions of perhaps splitting the difference, of shifting between the two epic showdowns with mutual respect and regard. But then Shane Victorino hit his home run in the seventh inning to tie it up. And then Matt Stairs smacked a game-winning two-run slammer to seal the deal, and I thought, “Who am I kidding? Of course I’m going to watch the Phils!”

Going into last evening, I didn’t feel an ounce of guilt in potentially shirking my civic duty for the seemingly “more important” Presidential debate. Going into last evening, I didn’t give a toss for the frivolity of sport. Going into last evening, all I saw was red. And even if they had lost, even if this series had been forced back to Philly for a sixth game, even if the Phillies were not going to the WORLD FREAKIN’ SERIES, I would feel the same as I do right now. To some of you, this may seem silly, but let me explain.

To begin with, sports is silly. It’s a trivial and inconsequential passion—but that is what makes it so beautiful. The zeal for a sporting event or team is the only emotional investment in life that has no lasting consequence. To be sure, love, politics, finance—all of these are noble and worthwhile pursuits, but each of them carries the inevitable weight of cause and effect. In each, the lasting results of success or failure carry with them potentially heavy outcomes. When it comes to sports, however, the result has no genuine bearing on the future of one’s life. It is, after all, only a game.

But let me tell you, this feels good. Really good! The last time the Phils went to The Show, I was 12—and we all know how that ended. Last night, watching the game with my family, I was suddenly thrown back to those more carefree days of my youth, and suddenly I am faced with the chance to wash clean the stain my broken heart left behind in 1993, and suddenly this is the only thing that matters. At least right now. When all is said and done, I’ll go back to following this whole president thing. Hopefully I’ll be wearing red and white to the polls.

Way to go Phillies!!!!

Oh yeah. That’s right. Tonight’s the night. It’s all happening. We’re going to the show…

Run Larry, Run!

Right about now I imagine many of you are having dinner table/barside/water-cooler conversations about politics (well, that and the upcoming season of “24″) . I also imagine you may be completing an equation in your head that looks a little something like this:

Cynicism Toward Candidate “X” + Cynicism Toward America’s Political Atmosphere – The Greater Evils of Candidate “Y” x The Greater Good Of America’s Political Atmosphere = Degree of Self Empowerment

Anyone with even a modicum of semi-political consciousness is most likely weighing this matter in the three clusterf*#*@k weeks currently leading up to the 2008 Presidential election, and because of this ponderation you may have even begun petitioning your friends and colleagues to “get involved.” To “make a difference.” To “rise up.” Phrases such as these were quite liberally thrown around during a recent Sunday afternoon conversation that occurred between my friend Matt, my father, my mother, and myself. In discussing the upcoming election and its consequences on America’s current financial woes, both my mom and Matt were extolling the (seemingly simple?) virtue of “everyday citizens” working their way into the system in order to begin cleaning it up. To begin washing away the corruption. To throw the crooked, pasty politicians out on the street with the rest of the garbage. Hell yeah!

But before I got all Travis Bickle about the matter, I recalled a recent piece I read in GQ magazine written by Philadelphia magazine editor-in-chief Larry Platt. It concerns his brief flirtation with running for Pennsylvania’s 6th congressional district and the maelstrom of compromise and triviality that descended upon him when he did; and I’ll tell you, it’s quite a tale. I’m still not sure if this piece has left me more or less cynical about the system—more or less empowered—but I’m curious about its affect on others. So check it out here and weigh in. It’s a really interesting, well-written story, so I would recommend it regardless of the current political atmosphere. But my question is this: Will it ever be possible for any of us “everyday citizens” to make a difference?

There are so many reasons I am thankful to be alive in the year 2008. Vaccines. Automobiles. The Macbook. “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.” But perhaps one of the most encouraging benchmarks of our time is the advent of “fake news.” Programs like “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report”, as well as publications like The Onion, are brilliant indicators of not only the human race’s gift for (and faith in) the power of humor, but also it’s burgeoning sense of rage against the pathetic, transparent illusion of the media.

I am convinced these contemporary satirical outlets are crucial to almost any socio-political discourse in America today because with each and every episode or edition, they seem to cry out, “Stop insulting us! We’re not as dumb as you think!” Sure, they can be a tad solipsistic at times, and yes, there is a risk that some will turn to these outlets in lieu of “actual” journalism and news gathering; but at their best they throw some pretty righteous pies in the faces of those who believe they can distill the events and consequences of the world’s stage into simplistic sound bites and banal platitudes. And I say, “Bra-fuckin’-vo!”

Consider Exhibit A: The following clip from a recent “Daily Show” episode brilliantly chides both the media and its consumers for allowing the powers-that-be to perpetuate the idea that the current economic downturn in America is just too complex for us fat, dumb, and happy cattle to ever understand. The clip, I believe, speaks for itself, so watch and get a little angry, because John Stewart and Co. are unveiling a very important secret here, namely that you are being talked down to. Every day. All the time. And this is very dangerous, folks. The longer we comply with this assumption, the more we are being taken advantage of. The longer we allow ourselves to be reduced to one pathetic common denominator, the more power we surrender as active and concerned citizens. And the longer all of this goes on unchecked, the more we will begin to believe it.

We are not so idiotic.We are not so ignorant. And we will not be so silent.

Oh yeah, and it’s pretty damn funny.

Look, the sins of political apathy are all too apparent to me (and probably to you as well), and I have no desire to use this space to bemoan the negative cliches of American politics and its machinery of sociological boredom as it relates to our candidates’ inability to separate themselves from the repetitive nature of their mutual attacks. To a certain extent, I consider it a given that our politicians are going to pander, that they’re going to spin, and that they are going to express only a modicum of actual human qualities when they allow themselves to be washed clean of their pale, shallow, odious Washington aspirations. But there were too many times during tonight’s debate wherein I was overwhelmed by these sad truisms, and I thought it a shame.

To be sure, there were some bright spots in tonight’s debate between Senators John McCain and Barack Obama. I thought McCain took an appropriately offensive (as in football, not body odor) approach to the debate, continually forcing Obama to react as opposed to attack, which has not been the case in the two weeks leading up to this melee. Because of the Obama camp’s continued attempts to link the McCain campaign to George W. Bush (and, by proxy, founded or otherwise, the current economic woes we are experiencing), McCain has been forced to play the defensive, and tonight it seemed the Arizona senator had every intention to turn that tide. Sure, many voters and pundits are going to make the case tomorrow that McCain came off with a slightly harsher edge than some may prefer, but if I were one of McCain’s advisors, I would consider that a victory, not a defeat.

For Obama’s part, I thought he once again showed a fantastic degree of both poise and charisma necessary for any successful leader, especially that of the so-called “free world.” In other words, Obama, once again, came off as quote-unquote Presidential, laying to waste any lingering anxieties (founded or otherwise) some may have still harbored that his inexperience is a detriment to his ability to lead. Obama’s poise was everything tonight, which certainly softened the blows McCain was making with his decidedly pointed attacks.

I also enjoyed the obvious tension that began to bubble up during the final quarter of the evening, taking particular joy in Obama’s insistence to counter McCain’s assertions that the Illinois senator’s foreign policy theories pertaining to Pakistan are dangerous, even though such a rebuttal was against the “rules.” There was a little bit of blood left in the arena, and it’s always more enjoyable to see our politicians bleed than sweat.

On the whole, however, I learned almost nothing new this evening, and that, I believe, registers as tonight’s greatest disappointment. The aesthetics of their respective presentations aside, neither McCain nor Obama succeeded in illuminating the finer points of their proposed policies or philosophies. Sure, McCain did bring up some important facts inherent in Obama’s proposed tax and health care policies, particularly as it relates to small businesses (50 percent tax increase, anyone?) and the right to choose one’s own health care provider (“Did anyone hear him say how much the fine would be?”). Likewise, Obama did manage to illustrate why cross-border health care options could be dangerous to Americans (see his cross-boarder banking analogy for evidence of that one) and also succeeded in further elucidating why his foreign policy approach is not, as some conservative pundits have asserted, dangerous and irresponsible.

But what was supposed to be a more down-to-earth, relatable town hall-style discussion at Belmont University tonight quickly devolved into each candidate repeatedly pointing fingers at the other, obviously twisting whatever question was asked of them into an opportunity to hit the campaign talking points (the same tired campaign points) as opposed to substantially answering the questions posed. Hell, the last quarter of the debate barely seemed to feature any questions from the audience at all, as moderator Tom Brokaw was repeatedly forced to remind the candidates not to exceed their respective time limits and thus ask many of the questions himself. I do not feel as though either candidate adequately answered any of the questions the audience members put forth (see McCain’s terribly politicized response to an early questioner’s petition to know how the recently passed bailout bill was going to help average Americans). Both Obama and McCain failed to connect with the American people tonight, instead coming off as repetitive and slightly petty.

I was really looking forward to this second of three debates, because I believe this county’s greatest strength is in its government’s supposed accountability to the people. That accountability should have been on display tonight, and instead it seemed we were once again presented with two men more adept at dodging it than embracing it.