NEW VIDEO: Real Estate | "Easy"

Back in October, jangly pop outfit Real Estate, put out the terrific full length LP, Days. On March 5th, Domino Records will release a new 7" single of Days lead-off track, Easy. To celebrate the occasion, Best Show On WFMU host Tom Scharpling has directed a pretty hilarious new video. You can watch it below.

Real Estate - "Easy" from Tom Scharpling

ALBUM REVIEW: Youth Lagoon | The Year Of Hibernation

Youth Lagoon  | The Year Of Hibernation (2011) - Fat Possum Records

The Year Of Hibernation, the debut album from Youth Lagoon is an album that seems like an auditory oxymoron. On the one hand, there is a simple, honest and humble appeal to it. The songs sound very much like you'd expect from a record made by one young man, Trevor Powers, in the bedroom of his Boise, Idaho home. On the other hand, the arrangements are epic. The songs are mature and self-assured and the narrator through muffled voice and reverb drench often sounds wiser than his years would belie.

It is within these contradictions that the greatest appeal of this record lies. It would be easy for a 22 year old kid to make a bedroom record with a few twee instruments and a laptop. Yet, that would make these songs seem cute or cloying. Youth Lagoon never elicit any of those emotions. Instead, the simple melodies are repeated in almost Reichian fashion and are built upon so as to elevate the songs to ethereal planes.

In the title of the record, and throughout mush of the lyrical material, Powers writes about his own sense of loneliness and anxiety. But it almost always seems smarter than the songs we should expect from someone who is just entering his adulthood. The production value and subject matter evoke a sense of nostalgia that this young man has created for a dream world that never really existed.

The potpourri of influences here are part of what make the record so interesting too. In quieter moments, there is a sense of a piano style 70s solo act. Yet, at the moment that aesthetic becomes clear gears shift and a synth loop chimes to throw the listener off track. The guitar riffs owe a large debt to early New Order with their melodic repetition and simplicity. Yet they never feel forced or out of place.

Powerful moments are common on this record, but none is more evident than in the coda that ends the penultimate track, "Montana". As the a slow melodic whistle builds with a smacking, metallic anvil sound to the songs crescendo. It is haunting and beautiful and very much original. This is a melody you will have in your head for days.

The best compliment I can give this record is that when it's over, you'll want to flip it over and start again from the beginning.

Rating: 8/10

The haunting beauty and melodic charm of Youth Lagoon
are even further displayed in the marvelous video
for "Montana", which can be found below.

My First Time: The Violent Femmes

We're proud to bring you our brand new series, My First Time Ever, in which a guest contributor tells a personal story of discovery. The stories included in this series are designed to be a sort of compendium of the individual moments we all have as we gain self-awareness and determine what matters to us. It's an experiment in where our experiences in growing up and becoming culturally critical and informed are similar and disparate.

For our inaugural essay, Chad Patterson tells us about the moment early in his college days when he realized he was, as Steve Perry once opined, "just a small town boy".

My First Time Ever: The Violent Femmes
By Chad Patterson

I had a moment in college where I realized just how "small town" I was. I will never forget it.

I was studying theater at Lansing Community College. And, as you do in college I met an eclectic group of people; young, old, black, white, hispanic, gay and straight. None of that surface stuff really mattered. What mattered is that performance brought us all together. We all loved doing live theater and we also all loved partying.

On opening night of my first College theater production we had a cast party in a small two bedroom apartment. There had to have been 20-25 us roaming around this little place. I was still a minor, but alcohol was there and accessible to all of us. It was a party like you see in the movies. There were people making out, people wearing lampshades on their head, and loud music playing and drinking. Lots and lots of drinking.

Now, don't get me wrong I had been to my share of shit kicker barn keggers in High School, but this was different. This party had that Bohemian art feel to it where at any time sex might just accidentally happen to you, or some older guy might start cutting lines of cocaine on the kitchen counter. Now none of that happened but it felt like it could.

Everything was hot and smoky and unlike anything I had ever experienced. I felt very outside of it, like a kid looking in at his own birthday party. But there was one moment in which I felt alienated more than any other and it wasn't because my friends were ostracizing me or that I wasn't participating. This environment, if nothing else, was extremely inclusive. This moment had everything to do with how out of touch I was culturally.

Everyone was gathering at the CD player. One person in particular, my Improv teacher and mentor Bill getting very excited about what was going to happen. There was a palpable buzz about the music that was about to be  played. My friend Dawn, whose apartment it was, took a CD from the jewel case with a dark cover and she placed the disc in the player. The door closed on the player and people backed away from it as if it were going to emit light and melt their faces.

I was glued to this plastic kitchen chair seemingly unable to move in anticipation for what they were about to hear. My mind filled with great party songs of my youth; Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, or maybe some Bob Seger? No. I was painfully out of touch.

The sound that came from this tiny little stereo at an apartment party in South Lansing was a raw, whiny lone voice that primally moaned "DAY AFTER DAY I WILL WALK AND I WILL PLAY, BUT THE DAY AFTER TODAY, I WILL STOP, AND I WILL START..."

Everyone in the room knew the words, they screamed them along with this man and as soon as the very raw, crude music began to this very simple beat and guitar riff the entire group of people were gone on this mad pogo jump around the living room slamming into each other. Then the singing started and everyone sang along sans myself. The words were so unforgettable; a man actually pleading in a song "Why can't I get just one fuck?" and then for good measure repeating the same line because inquiring about why one can't get a fuck bears repeating.

This was the first time I had ever heard The Violent Femmes and I may venture to say the first time that I had ever heard anything that would qualify as college radio. My entire childhood had been littered with a hodge-podge of classic rock, heavy metal, disco or easy listening contemporary crap. In other words Popular music.

Here I was in college looking at this group of people that I admired a great deal reveling in this song that they had obviously worshiped like a church hymn of youth rebellion and I couldn't even identify it.  I was still wearing my Motley Crue concert T to class sometimes and not to be ironic either, but because I actually thought it was cool.

From that moment on my ears and eyes were opened. I had missed out on an entire list of great artists in the 80's and early 90's because if for no other reason they weren't ever on the Monsters of Rock tour. I missed out on great bands like R.E.M., The Smiths, The Cure and Depeche Mode and of course the Femmes, who will always hold a special place in my heart because in my ways they very roughly deflowered me culturally and musically at a little apartment party in South Lansing.

The Violent Femmes - Add It Up

FILM JOURNAL 2012

As the arbitrary day for a new year arrives, so does the 2012 installment of the film journal. We'll attempt more intestinal fortitude to keep from allowing the baseball season to throw me off task.
This list will include both films viewed for the first time and those with previous multiple viewings. Anything on this list was seen via Netflix Watch It Now, DVD, in the theater or on cable - please assume that anything viewed on cable was not only watched in completion, but also without commercials. Movies weren't made with ads designed to fit into the plot narrative, I prefer it stays that way
 

Each of the films on the list is rated on a scale of 1 to 10. Any reviews or notes that I've made on a film from the list will be linked. Also, I have included at the end of each entry, how the film was watched. Cable, DVD and streaming entries were all watched on my home television unless otherwise noted. This will be an ongoing project, so please stay tuned.

Jan. 1 - Hugo (2011) directed by Martin Scorcese | 8/10 Brief Review 
A beautiful children's adventure film that combines the classic tale of childhood wonder and adventure and mixes it with Paris in the 1920's and the dawn of of the cinematic arts. Theater Viewing

Jan, 2 - The Sicilian Girl (2008) directed by Marco Amenta | 5/10
A compelling, but somewhat melodramatic re-telling of the true story of Rita Atria who testified in the early 1990's against the Sicilian mafia. Veronica D'Agostino is powerful in the title role, but the Lifetime vibe of the storyline and sometimes crawling pace keep this from being a full on winner. Netflix Instant

Jan. 4 - Tell Me Do You Miss Me (2006) directed by Matthew Buzzell | 8/10
This documentary of the final tour of indie band Luna is a quiet and poignant peek into the world of life as a mid-level rock and roll band taking a quasi-victory lap. Being that I am a sucker both the music doc genre and the records of Luna, this was sort of a slam dunk like for me. DVD

Jan. 5 - Killer Instinct: Mesrine, Part One (2008) directed by Jean-Francois Richet | 6/10
Vincent Cassel is an enigmatic force as French gangster Jacques Mesrine. The style and visual flash combined with the terrific cinematic vision of 60s Europe through Richet's eyes makes this seem like a slam dunk success. However, the one note storyline and obvious bio-pic tendencies make this one add up to less than the sum of its parts. A very pretty disappointment. Netflix Instant

Jan. 7 - These Amazing Shadows (2011) directed by Paul Mariano and Ken Norton | 7/10
An intriguing documentary on the foundation and purpose of the National Film Registry. While the filmmaking here is not perfect, this is a real treat for cinephiles. Netflix Instant

Jan. 8 - Studs Terkel: Listening To America (2010) directed by Eric Simonson | 7/10
A short (45 min.) documentary on the great oral historian, writer, listener, provacateur, TV/radio host and true patriot featuring interviews with Terkel at the end of his life and those who knew him best. While it is a humble and brief film, it's also a well crafted reminder of the power of speech, the value of listening and the worth of the "ordinary" man. HBO

Jan. 8 - Chungking Express (1994) directed by Wong Kar Wai | 8/10
If there is someone out there making more remarkably simple and effective films about what love better than Wong Kar Wai, I haven't met them. Chungking Express is a dual tale of failed romances, broken hearts and the rewards of emotional survival. A clever, funny, endlessly charming and poignant movie that also just looks really, really cool. DVD

Jan. 9 - Tabloid (2011) directed by Errol Morris | 8/10
With Tabloid, America's foremost documentarian, Errol Morris brings us the real life tale of former Wyoming beauty queen, Joyce McKinney and her bizarre episode in the mid-1970's with an alleged kidnapping that was covered feverishly by the British tabloids. Morris uses the story to capture thedivide between our own truths and fictions and how our obsessions shape the people we become. This is a pretty fascinating peak into a driven and almost inexplicable lady. You must see it for yourself. DVD

Jan. 14 - Moneyball (2011) directed by Bennett Miller | 7/10
Brad Pitt's perfromance here as Oakland A's General Manager Billy Beane, is one of the most self assured of his career. Jonah Hill is understated and terrific as Pitt's right hand man. The relationship between Beane and his daughter lends a compassionate (read as non-baseball) element to the story. The usually great Phillip Seymour Hoffman is perfectly fine here, but it would have been nice if he'd had more to work with. This is a solid film that languishes a bit at times, but is an overall success. DVD

Jan. 15 - We Bought A Zoo (2011) directed by Cameron Crowe | 7/10
This seemed like a film that would be easy to hate: A holiday release of a feel good family film based on a well know book based on a true story. Somehow, in Cameron Crowe's hands, the film winds up being loveable most of the time. Sure, there are moments of manipulative, tearjerking sequences and there is little doubt that it will end happily, but for the most part, it just works. Theater Viewing

Jan. 16 - The Arbor (2010) directed by Paul Mariano and Ken Norton | 9/10
An experimental documentary about the life and work of the late English playwright, Andrea Dunbar. Told in the style of theater verbatim, actors lip-synch the audio of recorded interviews of Dunbar's family and friends to recreate her bleak life. In addition, Dunbar's gloomy existence and her erratic behavior towards her family are profiled in the effects laid upon her children, especially her daughter Lorraine who plays the pivotal figure in the film's narrative. This is a shatteringly difficult film to watch, but it's done with such style and deftness, that it's simply an amazing thing to see. Truly a one of a kind film.  Netflix Instant

Jan. 24 - Sherlock Holmes: Game Of Shadows directed by Guy Ritchie | 6/10
There is no shame in having fun at the movies. Sure, many of the plot twists here are preposterous at best, but Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law are dashing and loads of fun. The additions of Jared Harris as the villainous Dr. Moriarty and Noomi Rapace as the gypsy at the aid of our heroes work wonderfully well. If anything, this feels like a Victorian version of James Bond. Which is just fine with me. Theater Viewing

Jan. 27 - The Way Back directed by Peter Weir | 5/10
The Way Back is based on the real life story of a group of men who escaped from a Siberian Gulag during WWII. All the pieces are there for a powerful film: interesting back-stories, prison breaks, man vs. nature and a clash of wills. The problem is the film's leaden pacing and extended running time. Add to that the nonsensical flip-flopping of native languages and use of English amongst primarily Eastern European characters and you're constantly reminded that you're watching a film. The performances are solid and the story is intriguing, but it just can't ever put all the pieces together. Netflix Instant


Jan. 28 - Terri directed by Azazel Jacobs | 5/10
In this coming of age film, we follow the trials and tribulations of Terri, an obese, orphaned teen who wears pajamas to school each day. Many of the high school film tropes are in full use here and at times, Terri's friendship with his assistant principal elevate the film above the usual fray. But still, this never really takes flight due to its inconsistencies and lack of focus. The ideas and the heart are there, but the execution falls short. DVD

Bean Soup With Ham Recipe

Few things are as comforting in the winter months as a hot and hearty bowl of soup. This bean soup with ham is practically the easiest meal you could make this side of macaroni and cheese from a box, but this will fill you with a sense of sated hunger and accomplishment without the yellow die #5 and carcinogen style cheese powder.

If you have small kids you'd like to share the joy of cooking with, or if you do not enjoy culinary duties, this is the place to start. With just a few minutes of prep work, a heavy dutch oven and an afternoon's worth of simmer time, you'll have a delicious and very inexpensive meal fit for a small army just in from the cold.

These measurements are designed to make a full pot of soup. This is not some bullshit four serving thing like crafty Aunt Martha worked up for you. This is a full on meal including leftovers. Around our place, we like to make this on Sunday afternoon. We have plenty of time for a long simmer and this will afford us lots of leftovers for lunches throughout the week. If it's way too much for you and yours, you can always throw some of the leftover soup into freezer safe containers and save it for another week or even another month. From start to finish this will take several hours. You might as well stock up and get several meals out of it.

As far as cookware is concerned, you'll want to use a large, heavy Dutch style oven with a lid. I like to use a 5.5 quart Le Creuset. It's an enameled cast iron pot that is perfect for this type of application. It doesn't have to be Le Creuset brand, but this type of pot will prove invaluable in your kitchen.

The Ingredients:
1 pound smoked ham (chopped into small cubes)
2 large smoked ham hocks (scored with a sharp kitchen knife)
2 48 ox. jars Great Northern Beans*
1 large Spanish onion (chopped)
4 cloves garlic (finely chopped)
1 tbsp. dried thyme leaves
Olive oil
Salt
Pepper
Cold Water

*You are welcome to use dry beans for this, but I find that canned beans are easier to use, cost only a shade more and don't require a pre-soak the night before. If you use dried beans, just make sure they're fully or mostly cooked before you refer to the times in this recipe.

The Process:
Over medium heat, add enough olive oil to coat the bottom of the pan. Once the hoil is heated through, add the ham to the pan and stir. Let it cook over medium heat for 2-3 minutes or until you can smell the aroma of the ham cooking. Once the ham is heated through and aromatic add the onion and garlic, along with the thyme leaves, some salt and pepper and stir to combine. You should be adding salt and pepper regularly throughout the process. I like to add small amounts continually so all the layers are seasoned properly. However, it's important to remember that youcan always add more later, but it's tough to fix it if you've gone too far.

After the onion and the garlic have softened and become almost opaque, add the beans and the ham hocks. As mentioned above, I recommend scoring your hocks, or cutting slits into the outer layers of fat to allow the fat to incorporate in to the soup. There isn't very much fat in the smoked ham and the small of amount of oil you need to start the cooking process likely are not enough fat to afford the flavor and texture of soup you're looking for here. Scoring helps add depth of flavor and is key to achieving a great bean soup.

Once you've added your hocks and beans, fill the pot to nearly to the top with cold water. Because I use canned beans, I refill the jars with water so it's not just plain water that I am adding, it's another layer of flavor. If you have cooked your own dried beans here, you can just use tap water. Stir all of the ingredients well and bring to a simmer.

After the soup has begun to simmer away, turn down the heat to medium-low and cover with the lid just askew to allow steam to escape, thus allowing the soup to thicken. This should simmer for at least 2-3 hours and will be fine if you leave it for even longer as long a you check and stir it regularly. I like a think, but not mushy soup, but you can simmer this until you achieve your desired thickness. Also be sure to keep tasting during the simmer and add salt and pepper as needed. Remove the hocks from the pot and discard them and you're ready to eat. A great homemade cornbread or loaf of bread goes perfectly with this and all told you can feed your whole family a feast for well less than twenty bucks, and have leftovers for several more meals.

Confessions Of A Quiz Bowl Nerd

Many people will tell you that Trivial Pursuit is simply a board game. A cocktail party diversion or a way to get the family together for pizza and laughs on a Friday night. For most people this statement is entirely true. For a few people, people like me, it is a death match of intellectual cunning.

I am by nature, a pretty nice person. Regularly, I will observe people in social settings to assure they are comfortable and having a pleasant time. I make an effort to be interested in people's lives and am a generally gregarious fellow on most occasions. Bring a box of Trivial Pursuit and it's like inviting the fox to the hen house. All social mores are tossed aside, politeness bites the dust and it is on.

My Aunt Melody first introduced me to Trivial Pursuit on Christmas Day, 1981. She had given the game to my mother as a gift. My parents, grandparents and aunts and uncles, after playing a full game or two, were kind enough to let me play along even though I was just nine years old. We were playing in teams, so my age was less of a liability than you might imagine. Occasionally a question would come along that I knew the answer to and the adults would let me shout my answer proudly. These were obviously fairly easy questions, but it was a great feeling. I got to hang out with adults and they were proud of me for knowing the answers to stuff. There was no shame in getting a question wrong and success in getting it right. Suddenly, knowledge became a very valuable commodity to me.

Trivial Pursuit games became a regular obsession at our house. Anytime family or adult friends came over, the game would come out and I was always made to feel welcome. This wasn't so much an effort by my folks to show off my child prodigy-esque skills, but more of a chance to simply include me in their fun. While it seems very likely they felt there was an inherent intellectual benefit in my playing, I just loved the chance to play at the big table. To this day, I have to wait my turn at Thanksgiving for a hand of euchre, but I get first dibs on Trivial Pursuit. If this gives you the impression my euchre skills are poor, you might be on to something.

Rarely, if ever in my life have I been a braggart. I am a good cook, but I know lots of good cooks. There is a great deal that I know about things like baseball, music or movies, but I always wind up meeting someone who knows at least as much as I do or more and I never feel like I should thump my chest over such things. Yet, trivia is a different issue for me altogether. After careful consideration, I can only deduce that it was high school that truly made me this way.

By my sophomore year I had entered into the world of quiz bowl. We had matching V-neck sweaters instead of uniforms and these people became my friends. They were funny and genuine and actually liked me and for the first time in my life I no longer pretended to be someone I wasn't. I could be smart without being shunned. I could reference a foreign movie or talk about a Smiths record and wasn't made to feel like a shit heel weirdo for it. I was a quiz bowl nerd and I was home.

The physical configuration was fairly simple, desks were set up with a low-rent, Jeopardy style buzzer system and four contestants teamed up and listened to questions ranging from history and math to music and geography. It works exactly like you would imagine; a room brimming with anti-social nerds oozing with useless knowledge showing off to each other and trash talking about how they were the first to nail how many sonnets Shakespeare wrote or what the capital of Bulgaria might be.

My high school was as awkward as that of any suburban teen without aggressive athletic skills or an early growth spurt.  I was short, skinny and interested in things that most people found weird and unusual. There is nothing so awful in a small high school as being unusual.

Our team was pretty good, and during the season of my senior year we were invited to compete on a new show called Quizbusters. This show was produced by the local PBS affiliate and featured most of the schools from the area. I don't recall exactly how many teams were involved, but I vividly remember there was an NCAA type bracketing system and I remember for damned sure that the team who won received free tuition at Michigan State University for four full years.

We rolled through the early rounds and mopped up our opponents. A sense of destiny began to fill my thoughts. I imagined myself attending a prestigious university, walking to class, meeting cool people who liked weird records and art films; people I belonged with, not jocks from a small farm town. My parents had enough money to send me to school even if we didn't win, but I felt like the Quizbusters scholarship was my ticket to enter the world I was interested in, like a kid from the ghetto dreams of the NBA. Also, if I won a scholarship, Michigan State might overlook my 2.67 GPA. A GPA which on its own merits, would certainly not provide acceptance into a Big Ten school unless I arrived on an athletic scholarship. I built this competition up to be my escape, even though it almost certainly was not.

Our team continued to careen to the finals with big win after big win. It seemed so easy as we swatted aside opponent after opponent. Then came the final round against our local rivals, the Williamston High School Hornets. The entire match was nip and tuck. The lead changed hands seemingly a dozen times. Bonus rounds swung back and forth and rapid fire questions came from all angles as the clock ticked down to the lightning round. As we entered the final 60 seconds of competition, a flurry of questions worth ten points each rolled in. Sweat ran down my acned forehead and on to my nylon Bath Quiz Bowl v-neck sweater.  When the buzzer sounded the match was over and we had won by 10 points - one single question. The score was 320 to 310 and my teammates and I began to celebrate. Yet somewhere, in my gut there was an unsettling feeling of nerves.

After several minutes of hushed conversation between the Williamston players, advisers and the host Matt Ottinger, it was decided that the game officials would look at the replay. Yes, the replay! I was unaware of it too, but quiz bowl allows for instant replay. Minute after agonizing minute ticked by and then finally the details were announced. Somehow, in the middle of the lightning round, our team had answered a question incorrectly. More specifically, I had answered incorrectly, and I knew it before everyone else on my team.

The disputed question had been asked about halfway through the lightning round. It was a simple question and I knew the answer, but my mouth had said the absolute wrong thing. How could I have been so stupid? The answer was so damned easy. Ottinger had asked, "Where are the halls of Montezuma located"? Obviously, the correct answer was Mexico, but my mouth and my recollection of the Marine fight song in which those words appeared blurted out Morocco. MOROCCO! That is where the fucking shores of Tripoli are. What the hell was I thinking?

As a result of my gaffe, our 10 points for answering correctly were erased from the board and our lead evaporated to nothing. I felt awful and wondered what the quiz bowl overtime rules were. Then, the enormous kick in the gut was delivered as the host announced that we would also be deducted 10 points for the incorrect answer. In a flash we had lost. We had lost and it was completely my fault.

I am certain now that this event has affected my personality when trivia games are introduced in to a room. It is the only opportunity I ever have to redeem myself for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. Numerous times throughout my life, I have said the wrong thing at the wrong time, but never with such swift, cold and painful results. My teammates forgave me. My parents comforted me. I could never do either for myself.

My life has turned out quite well and I am a generally happy individual. I can live with never having played second base for the Detroit Tigers as I dreamed when I was 10. It will be okay that I never acted in a Quentin Tarantino film, ran for public office or wrote the great American novel. Fucking up the lightning round of a local PBS affiliate quiz show and costing myself and my teammates a free education will never be okay.  And that is why, when we play trivial pursuit, I will destroy you. It will be because I have no choice.

Author's Addendum: I hate the film Magnolia, not just because of the stupid frogs at the end, but because William H. Macy's failed quiz kid character strikes too close to home.

Hugo, A Brief Review

Hugo (2011)
Directed by Martin Scorcese

Like almost any other well versed moviegoer in America, when I heard Martin Scorcese was making a film adaptation of a children's novel, I nearly fell out of my chair. The simple idea of imagining a film for kids from the guy who brought you Taxi Driver, Bill The Butcher and Goodfellas seemed hilariously wrong. Even beyond that though, the sensibilities of a man who crafts harsh and often stark cinema seemed completely at odds with a story of magic and surrealism in post World War One Paris as seen by tweens. If it takes a humble man to admit he was wrong, I stand before you a very humble critic with his hands pulled from his pockets only to applaud this film.

Hugo works very well because of how it looks, how it's played and how it's told, but mostly it works because it is a love story about the history of early movie making from a man who has had a lifelong love of the movies. Scorcese's ease with the camera and his gentle touch here completely belie the style we have come to associate so closely with him. The tough and gritty streets of the criminal underbelly are forsaken for a child's enthusiasm and search for his purpose while Scorcese beautifully captures the magic of childhood discovery.

This story is an adventure of a young man in many of the most conventional senses. It combines a detective story, a tragic family past and a mysterious man with a haunted past. Somehow though, all of these tropes never seem trite or contrived or obvious; they simply are the facts of our tale and they are utterly compelling. Complex films that combine history and a specific time and place made with children in mind and from a child's view are a rare thing. Films like Hugo and Finding Neverland trust their audience enough to allow for the story to be languid when it suits the narrative, but they also plant their allure in the history of its characters and the glory of their quest without impatiently hinting at the inevitable payoff. In other words they are more patient than most films, evn films made ostensibly for adults. Yes, Transformers, I am looking in your direction.

If you don't know what this film is about, don't find out. The payoff and the twists the story takes will be so much more worth it than if I lay them out brick by brick for you now. Go to this film and be surprised at what a love story can be in the hands of Mr. Scorcese. Go to learn about the beginnings of the art form you are watching at that moment and go because this is a lovely and genuine movie. Really, just go.

Hugo Trailer

Sabauteur Podcast: Episode One

In our premier episode, my co-host Mike Vasas and I will discuss our thoughts on the advent of hispterism and whether or not that moniker applies to two guys who think highly enough of their own opinions to host a podcast. Plus, we'll like, love and hate the work of Woody Allen, get a fresh perspective on the Boston Tea Party and unearth a film from the early 70's you should wait absolutely no longer to view. Listen up, the new podcast is here.

Download Podcast

The New Sabauteur Podcast

After a rather lengthy time away from the blogosphere, Sabauteur is back with a bang: We are thrilled to announce our brand new Sabauteur Podcast. The podcast will be hosted by the original Sabauteur, Matt Carlson and Michigan music maker/tastemaker, Mike Vasas. You probably know Matt from his postings here at the blog. You can learn more about Mike on his website or by checking out his terrific Songs Not By Me blog where he posted a new cover song for every day of all of 2010.

The podcast will focus primarily on movies and music, but will cover cultural topics as well. Regular segments will include a top 7 section where a theme is chosen and 7 picks are made by each host and recommended to the listeners. Other subjects like Categorical Historical (listen in for more info on that), overlooked records and films and more will be covered. We're hoping to have fun, shed light on some great cultural items that never got proper consideration and to use the podcast as a way to get some more feedback from our audience. Be sure to check out our Sabauteur Podcast facebook page and be sure to "like" the original Sabauteur facebook page if you don't already.

Our premier episode will be up on the blog during the week of December 16th and we look forward to bringing you two of these every month throughout 2012. See you on the radio.

That Guy Deserves a Punch In The Face(s)

I really hate Rod Stewart. Not just in a, "I don't really care for his music" kind of way, but in the sense that being in an environment where Rod Stewart's music is being played makes me feel physically edgy. It's the sort of sensation you encounter when you're aware that your blood pressure is on the rise due to an overwhelming feeling of emotional distress and an aching desire for that particular moment of awkwardness and discomfort to come to a swift and merciful end.

There are so many reasons to hate Rod Stewart. Yet, many many people love him, or at least like him, and this immediately calls the sum total of the rest of that person's cultural knowledge into question. If you like Rod Stewart, you might also be interested in loads of other things that drive me up a wall. You may be in to a load of other things I hold dear to my heart. But, you like Rod Stewart and for me that is the cultural equivalent of having been a Nazi Party member or a part-time Klansman. Everything else will be cast in doubt because of this nefarious association with a crackle throated, dust-mop headed assbag.

A great deal of my venom for The Rod is that his appeal seems to be so vast and completely inconceivable.  Firstly, he is not a very good singer. Nay, he is a terrible singer. Sure, people like Tom Waits, Bob Dylan and Neil Young have made a very nice career for themselves with the same basic level of vocal skill. The fundamental difference is that Rod Stewart is nowhere near the songwriter of those three gentleman and that he is largely seen as a vocalist. Waits, Young and Dylan are songwriters and artists while Rod Stewart is just a singer and he's just bad at it. In fact, the Rod Stewart version of the Tom Waits composition, Downtown Train is a classic example of how one man managed to ruin another man's perfectly good song. Stewart's voice is the vocal equivalent of nails on a chalkboard, but I would rather eat chalk and run my own bicuspids across the board than be forced to listen to a low-rent Jagger impersonator caterwaul into my eardrums.

From grocery stores to Barnes and Noble and classic rock radio to a movie theater lobby you're likely to be trapped in a public space with Rod's sweaty throated rasp coming at you from the PA in the rafters. This is largely because The Rod has commercially evolved and transformed to accompany his core audience to their golden years. Not only have we been subjected to his years of schlocky rock records and faux-disco and power ballads, now The Rod has in recent years made a series of recordings of old standards. I have never really understood the gaga nature of Led Zeppelin fans, the band to me seems just simply overrated. Thusly, avoiding Led Zeppelin is fairly easy; stay away from frat parties; don't accept rides from males who drive muscle cars and appear to be between the ages of 16 and 27; if you attend a function and there is a turntable and a bottle of Jagermeister in the same room you may want to develop an exit strategy. Avoiding Rod Stewart is a completely different animal. Soccer moms at the mall might really like his 80's stuff while the local pharmacy might think "Gee, I bet the older female customers would love this version of Someone To Watch Over Me". And, the dive bar with a sketchy jukebox is going to scream Maggie Mae at you before the clock strikes ten! It's a scientific fact and you had better deal with it. Rod Stewart is everywhere and it's almost certainly because there is some demographic that will walk through the door and we want to make sure they feel at home.

Right now you're reading this and probably thinking "Wait, Faces are good. You can't argue with that right?" I admit that Faces are - and please view this through the proper prism of perspective - not as awful as the bulk of his other work. However, The Faces have a special place in my catalog of ire.

In 1969, Steve Marriott left the then Small Faces after a five year string of churning out terrific records in a mold of mod meets garage meets white boy soul. The Small Faces did many of the same things that the early Who records did while encapsulating the R&B action of early Beatles' records and a much better version of what bands like The Spencer Davis Group were trying to pull off. In short, they were very, very good and under-appreciated. When frontman and guitarist Marriott left due to the ever insidious "creative differences", his bandmates decided to soldier on without him. To replace him, they hired guitarist Ronnie Wood (later of Rolling Stones fame) and, you guessed it, Rod Stewart. The result was two men replacing one and being less than they had been before. To me, The Small Faces are one of the great unheralded bands and almost everyone will recognize the name Faces before they recognize The Small Faces. This recognition is almost certainly the effect of Stewart and Wood's star power. Wood is forgiven because of his participation on some very good Stones' records. Rod Stewart takes the fall here. It may not be fair, but gets much more credit than he deserves for jumping on the bandwagon of a great band that no one knows about because they're too busy listening to Rod Stewart.

Perhaps the single most mystifying thing about Stewart's popularity is his supposed sex appeal. Are you shitting me?!? This is a guy who, even in his prime looks like an emaciated version of some bizarre troll-like creature in a Tolkein novel. His spiky hair looks as though it were drawn on with an Aryan Magna Doodle and the alcoholic bulbous ball of a clown nose seems to be something even a caricature artist would think better than to include in a carnival drawing. His Cindy Crawford style mouth melanoma, his gawky mannerisms and that hitching white boy chicken neck thing he does when he dances are among the myriad physical manifestations that would get him laughed off stage at the local karaoke bar on a Friday night. But for the Rodster this is sex appeal. It must be those wily charms that landed him supermodel Rachel Hunter. If every chick dug hair like that you'd think Robert Smith would have a wider sex appeal than just the sphere of 17 year old girls on the verge of suicide.

So, Rod Stewart is hideously ugly and makes ladies think he's sexy and manages to convince them that they might even want his body. He cannot sing as well as Bob Dylan, but millions of people bought his record of standards. By the way, these sales probably happened primarily at Target stores and Starbucks locations. Stewart needed an accomplice to fill the shoes of Steve Marriott, but Faces got ten times the press and adoration. Maggie Mae is an awful song played way too many times and should only be listened to when the only other options involve songs by The Eagles or The Doors, yet you will hear it in the next seven days somewhere unless you live in Bangladesh. Rod Stewart may be terrible at all of these things, but his success makes he think he might just be a genius. If reincarnation is a real thing, I am pretty sure there is a direct link between P.T. Barnum and Rod Stewart.

Life Is A Highway (or so I'm told)

There is a lot of driving that is required for my job. Not the sort of driving like that of a long haul trucker in a Tom T. Hall song, but a lot of driving nonetheless. In a given week I might drive a thousand miles or more. Just recently I had a three day stretch in which I drove more than 900 miles in less than 72 hours. Driving is a big part of what I do and I am very, very used to doing it.

Almost all of my driving is a solitary operation. It's not the sort of gregarious road trip vibe that most people equate with being out on the open road. I'm driving because I am working and going from place to place is a huge part of the equation, so it's easy to think of it as just one part of the job. And, because I am constantly retreading the same ground, often multiple times in the same week, the scenery is rarely interesting and never really a surprise in and of itself. This kind of driving is a kind of mindless task that seems to be overwhelmed by the vast amounts of time I spend trapped in the car; the chore of sitting in one position, barreling down the interstate and realizing that home or the office is still more than a hundred miles off in the distance.

Lots of that time trapped in the car might be spent making or taking phone calls from colleagues and customers. Keeping busy like this does help to break the monotony of the solitary sojourn, but it's not only less than ideal for perfectly safe driving conditions, it is also like doing two forms of work at the same time. So, while it is a functional way to accomplish things in tandem, it also somewhat exhausting after a while and at the very least mildly hazardous.

In an effort to make the time go faster and seem more enjoyable, there is a lot of radio listening that happens inside my car. Public talk radio and intensely specific discussions about the minutiae of baseball are the preferred auditory distractions in my fairly clean 2008 Saturn Aura. My car has a subscription satellite radio service which broadcasts all manner of niche programming that varies from right wing talk radio to a station that plays nothing but Grateful Dead bootlegs 24/7/365. Certainly this allows for a great deal of choice in between those two widely disparate ends of the spectrum, and yet almost everything in that aural rainbow seems somewhat ridiculous after a while because it is almost all segmented and based on a singular methodological approach.

There are stations I frequent and even thoroughly enjoy for stretches of time. But after 45 minutes, honky-tonk number after honky-tonk number after honky-tonk number can begin to sound almost ridiculous even though I love those songs. Furthermore, every station has a series of "personalitites" that are charged with recapping the last few songs that we just listened to and spinning vaguely anecdotal tales somehow related to the station's milieu. The personalities on Willie's Roadhouse, the honky-tonk station, all seem to be male and performing a half-hearted attempt at a Sam Elliott impression that is simultaneously soothing and irritating. Stations like the Verge and XMU are layered in teams of indie rock bloggers and pundits who all sound like synthetically energetic music nerds in their late thirties and early forties pretending as though they're 23 years old and just got back from a Vampire Weekend in the rustic woods of northern Vermont.

Because these stations on the satellite radio dial often play songs that I like, and in most cases those songs are not readily available on conventional radio - after all when was the last time your local country station played Buck Owens and His Buckaroos "Tiger By The Tail"? - it's really easy to enjoy it and to dance around the presets seeking out exciting and interesting music. After a while though, it just seems like work and the music begins to run together in a stream of mundanity and the enthusiasm it gave me an hour ago transforms into a sense of duty and obligation.

At this point, I might toss in a mix CD, or a podcast burned to disc or settle upon a mildly interesting NPR chat show and sort of tune out the sound of the radio altogether. It's at times like these that I learn a great deal about my neighbors on the road. There are innumerable sociological indicators out there on America's highways and byways.

Firstly, there are the people who you can tell at first glance are the ones who are bitching constantly about the cost of gasoline. These loud-mouthed consumer advocates are easy to spot because they are the ones driving the largest vehicles on the road and are traveling in these caverns on wheels all by themselves. They proliferate the interstate in Hummers, minivans, and overly engorged SUV type things that appear to be pregnant versions of what a car used to look like way back in the days before gas was more expensive than milk.

Next, you have the lonely driver. This driver, even in the smallest of commutes is terribly uncomfortable, and is neurotically petrified that he or she will have to spend even a few scant minutes alone in the car with actual thoughts. To combat this desolate landscape of emptiness the lonely driver makes various and sundry cell phone calls to fight off the loneliness. SIDE NOTE: Jeff Tweedy, if you're reading this, now you know how to fight loneliness for reals. For the lonely driver, leaving a rambling, disjointed voice mail for a guy you went to a movie six weeks ago and haven't seen since really is better than a moment of self reflection. Apparently, even a nagging 17 minute tirade from your haggard, chain smoking mother in-law is a better alternative than a brief interlude of peace and quiet.

Billboards and road signs are so commonplace in my daily transitory routes that after even just a short while they begin to meld in to the landscape. However, there are times when you can't help but be pulled in by their wiley charms. I am especially fascinated by the recent push to market hospital services along the sides of our interstate highway systems. Routinely, I will see gigantic photos of a doctor's head shots with an alphabet soup of qualifications after his or her name and a vapid tag line about a particular caregiver's credentials for open heart surgery or oncology. Am I really supposed to believe that when choosing a surgeon to perform an operation in which they stop your heart for three minutes that the deciding factor is going to be a mug shot on a billboard across the road from KFC? There are also a bevy of billboards to make the public aware of expected ER wait times. What the hell is this there for? Have you ever been trucked into an ambulance at 1:45 in the morning after missing a step and tumbling headlong down the stairway, your broken bones aching in gut-wrenching pain and had the lucidity to mention to the EMT that the wait at St. Lawrence is likely to be more than 30 minutes shorter than the wait at Sparrow Hospital? Of course, you know this because the marketing Gods bestowed this knowledge upon you even though they did not give you the intelligence to watch that first step before it became the doozie that left you with three cracked ribs and clavicle that snapped so badly part of it is now scraping against your ear when you turn your head.

It is even routine to see ads on the highway for funeral homes, hospice care, vasectomies and painless dentistry. I understand that these are businesses trying to drum up customers, but where does marketing stop and where does common sense begin? I cannot imagine choosing funeral services or where to get my baby-making area clipped because I saw a catchy billboard for vasectomies (and for vasectomy reversals - is this really an area where dudes flip-flop a lot?) and noticed they had what appeared to be competitive rates and a very professional marketing campaign.

I know that much of the marketing's approach here is to remind people that they might need these things. After all that is a big part of advertising. It just seems that a reminder of your own mortality might be delivered in a more careful way than a giant 60 foot sign for funeral services. "DON'T FORGET! YOU ARE GOING TO PERISH FROM THIS EARTH - MAYBE EVEN SOON. GET YOUR PLANNING STARTED TODAY!" This doesn't have the same pizzazz as a plea for you to spend $5 on a Taco Bell Big Box or a car lot offering credit to all potential buyers. Funeral services probably shouldn't be an impulse purchase and if you're being swayed by advertising for the location of your memorial service, you likely own some Ginsu knives and that pasta pot thinger I see the troll-like red-headed lady plugging on my television every Saturday morning.

Lots of people like to say lots of things with the back ends of their cars. Of course there are stickers on bumpers for a massive number of interests and viewpoints; political leanings, honor student recognition, travel destinations, rooting interest in particular sports teams, brands of choice and even preferences for a specific breed of dog - although I always feel as if this is some sort of thinly veiled pet racism; "I Heart Schnauzers" reads an awful lot like Aryan dog love and the Schnauzers are the Nazis taking the poor little Terriers and ShitZu's to Doggie Auschwitz.

I have three especially favorite categories of the bumper sticker bon vivant and what the stickers say about the owner of a particular vehicle and our society at large. They are as follows.

1. The Calvin's Bladder Viewpoint Guy
You have seen them everywhere; Calvin of the famed Calvin and Hobbes comic strip is plastered on a sticker. Calvin is standing, often with his head leaned slightly forward and an impish devil grin on his face, always with his hands in crotchal region and usually with a faint hint of carpenter's crack smiling from above the line of Calvin's pants. Emanating from Calvin's zipper area is a stream of liquid, always drawn in a dramatically arcing fashion, and the urine descends to land on an item that the owner of this particular vehicle holds in contempt. Please understand that the possibilities here are endless; political candidates, ex-wives, former girlfriends, football teams, and virtually any brands of trucks, car, auto part, snow machine, motorbike, bicycle and breakfast cereal that has been in production in the last twenty years. The concept here is that this driver can say more about himself or herself by explaining what they hate about the world than by telling you about that which they love. If Calvin is pissing on a Ford logo and they're driving a Chevy truck, it is easy to deduce that the driver loves Chevy trucks and part of the glory of that statement is that you had to know what the driver hated and then noticed the brand of truck the sticker was on and by extension where the allegiance of the driver is allied. It's a very basic form of social mathematics for the mildly retarded.

I do not appreciate the Calvin's Bladder Viewpoint Guys (CBVG) because I like the stickers nor especially the idea of using a cleverly written comic strip character to vulgarly voice one's opinons. I revel in the CBVG because they are not only so shallow and lacking in self-confidence that they need to use hate to voice their love, but they have to do it through the urethra of an ill-tempered six year old. Not only is this a fabulous parable for the state of discourse in this country, but it's also a very helpful way for you to figure out who is the person you are currently sharing the road with that is the most likely to get a DUI this coming Friday night.

2. The Stick Figure Family Lady
I am beginning to wonder if every minivan sold in the United States today comes with a free set of family stick figures. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, this is a phenomenon in which the members of a family are caricatured into stick figures for a series of stickers that get placed almost exclusively in the lower left corner of a minivan's rear window. The sticker not only contains a stick figure approximation of each family member's likeness, but usually includes that family member's name directly above or below their corresponding image. Most of the stickers are arranged in a misogynistic fashion straight out of Eisenhower era attitudes on family life; Dad is first and then Mom and then the children are arranged in order of chronology. Many of these stickers also accommodate room for family pets as well as the humans in the family.

The logic behind this behavior is really sort of lost on me. For one, I cannot imagine why I would want the names of my children plastered on the back of our vehicle. This seems like name tags for pedophiles. It is as if, desperate moms everywhere are shouting, "Hey creepy neighbor guy, or shady dude at the mall parking lot, I just want to make sure you know the name of my kids before you go snatch them and toss them in the back of your white, windowless van". The same woman who won't let her 11 year old kid ride around the block on his bike by himself has no compunction whatever about publicly announcing the names of her entire family on permanent display in her driveway. Furthermore though, this also feels like a cry for help.

Did you ever have one of those friends who had a girlfriend that was a real harpy pain in the ass sort and he was also telling you and his other friends how great she was. He did this, of course, because he was trying to convince himself that she was great, not because he wanted you to be convinced. The Family Stick Figure Sticker is the soccer mom's method of telling you how great her family is.

She's telling you how much she loves and appreciates her borderline alcoholic insurance salesman husband who tells off-color jokes to the neighbors at the annual picnic and hasn't finished a chore without 2.5 hours of incessant nagging since the second week of their marriage.

She's telling you all about her daughter Molly, her oldest child and the daughter with whom she shares a special relationship even though last week Molly confessed that she "went to Planned Parenthood and got on the pill because it was easy and, well, Amanda has been on it for over a year and what else was she supposed to do to make boys like her?" Molly has also been sneaking out at night and is probably smoking pot already, but she is the oldest, so we put her stick figure first in the kids group.

Jason's sticker is slightly shorter than Molly's, even though at 12, he is already as tall as Molly and practically as tall as his mother. Jason is a chronic underachiever, behaves like an insolent middle schooler and has all the social graces of a death row inmate. In short, he's a little prick.

Muffy and Azrielle are the family cats. Their moppy and carefree faces are plastered at the end of the family row. Never mind that Muffy met an untimely end more than three months ago when she slipped out the front door and chased a squirrel across the road only to be squashed by a Chevrolet truck with a Calvin sticker in the cab's back window. It was a great deal like an object lesson in evolutionary stickering. In any case, because the line goes from Jason to Muffy to Azrielle, if we took Muffy's sticker out there would be a gap and that would just be a greater reminder of the loss of our precious kitty.

Don't worry about us. We haven't all had dinner at the same table since Christmas evening, but our family is great and you know that because we took the time to get custom stickers made and place them carefully on the rear window of our Honda Odyssey. Plus, we have a license plate that proclaims "Kids! Just Love 'Em".

For a more in-depth look at the phenomena of stick figure stickers and their place in the current cultural landscape, see some conjectures on the subject at the blog losanjealous.

3. Sour Grapes Political Loser
Political viewpoints are far and away the most popular form of bumper sticker expression. Stickers have been designed to encompass different drivers opposing opinions on topics like prayer in schools, abortion, political candidates, tax reforms, millage proposals, and union affiliations. Hands down my favorite political sticker is the one for the cause or candidate whose election is long since passed. That ragged McCain-Palin sticker on the back of the Buick you saw last week is exactly what I mean. These people have taken to washing the car as infrequently as possible so as to elongate the lifespan of their political message. They didn't vote for Obama, so you cannot blame them for all the bad things happening in the world. How do you know they didn't vote for Obama? Because they went to painstaking lengths to keep a navy blue mini-banner on their vehicle for three full years to remind you who they did vote for. Doesn't that help you get on with your day and to sort out your own political prerogatives? That scrubby quasi-hippie you just passed in his weathered and sputtering '96 VW Golf was expressing his disgust for the second half of the G.W. Bush administration and his inherent distrust in the two-party political system with his Nader '04 sticker, which is, of course, green. How clever.

This sort of rationale to hang on so long to a cause long lost seems not only sad, but offers an insight in to our deeply held political beliefs; we are much more interested in maintaining our own belief in our own opinion about a past action or belief than we are in crafting a way to move forward. We hate our politicians, even the ones we voted for. So, why do we hold on so tightly to the ones who didn't get the chance that we fervently believed they deserved to be hated like the others? Even if, as they say, history teaches us nothing, maybe we can learn at least a little something of ourselves in the way we refuse to let go of something as simple as a sticker for an election loser.

These and many other "lessons" are the sorts of lessons you learn out on the road.  Or, at least convince yourself that these trite observations are lessons. Like I said, these drives are almost all solo operations. And, as I slice through the lanes of our lovely mitten I am frequently amazed at the fellow travelers with whom I share the road. I am amazed at their hubris and their willingness to help a fellow stranded driver. I am amazed at their level of interest in and allegiance to specific brands of energy drink while giving non-verbal indications that they've traveled to far off lands and appear to greatly support the National Park system. My road neighbors are a weird lot, and are most likely very much like me: They are wildly contradicted in their behaviors and opinions. They are opinionated and generous. They are snarky while being sentimental. They have lots of smart ass things to say and a bumper on which to say it. I have a bumper too, but my blog has a lot more room on it. I HEART SABAUTEUR!

Put The Needle On The Record

There is a magical, scratchy popping sound in my life.  It's got a warm, sort of fuzzy yet etched gritty tone to it that fills me with anticipation and happiness.  My thumb made it happen.  That cushy ball of flesh on the outside of the opposable digit on my right hand lifted a metal arm on to a spinning disc of grooved vinyl and made this sound - and that sound is excitement.  Songs are coming; the sounds of a real live record, started with actual hands and played through actual speakers.  This action and its consequences make me unspeakably pleased.

I love my records.  I don't mean my compact discs or the shit cluttering up my iTunes disk space.  I mean my vinyl records.  If, like me, you are over the age of 30 you have at least some vague recollection of a smoky Saturday night party in your parent's rec room that involved a Boston LP or a greatest hits collection of some band you could give a damn about now like The Doobie Brothers or The Eagles.  But you remember that party.  You remember everything seemed dark and mysterious yet simultaneously bright and vibrant.  There were buckets of laughter going on almost all of the time even though no one was telling anything that seemed like jokes.  The room smelled like a summer night filled with stale beer and house plants.

Like most people, specifically most Americans in these pre-pubescent years of the 21st century, I own a great deal of junk.  My house is stuffed to the gills with stuff I don't need and things I will likely never use to their full potential.  I have shirts in my closet I will never wear and used books on my shelves I will likely never finish reading.  There are leftover magazines I store for no particular reason and board games I have played but once - and that episode of use was probably obligatory as that Jenga box came from a thoughtful relative on Christmas Eve and my wife might point out that "it would be a shame not use it at least once".  Most of this crap is just that: crap.  My records somehow have achieved a station above my other belongings.

There are something like 1100 or more records in the cabinets in the upstairs hallway of my humble house.  There is a series of nice shelving that I specifically purchased (and assembled) for the purpose of holding my 1100 or more records.  For the hardcore record collector, this number seems shamefully small.  Any self-respecting collector in their late-30's (as I admittedly am in my late 30's) should be much farther along than just 1100 odd LPs.  This may be true, but I am not a collector.  My records are not all stored in high end polyvinyl sleeves and are not purchased for their "future value".  None of my LPs are viewed as an investment and at no point have I ever once considered buying a duplicate copy of a record just to get an earlier pressing or a limited edition version.  These are not artifacts or display pieces.  They were purchased to be listened to, shared with others and mostly to be enjoyed.

To the uninitiated, the idea of housing and listening to this many physical records probably seems idiotic.  The cynical vinyl neophyte would most likely assume that I still obtain addresses and phone numbers by flipping through a physical copy of the yellow pages in lieu of getting online.  Anyone who would wholeheartedly embrace such an antiquated technology must also drive around in a car that still uses leaded gasoline, right?  A device like an iPod takes up almost no room and holds as much storage as the entirety of my myriad cabinets and stacks of vinyl.  For those who grew up after the age of vinyl or are simply sycophants for the fancies of technological advancement and seek primarily to expedite and consolidate all cultural experiences my vinyl stores must seem a colossal waste of time and money.

Music listening is not, or at the least should not, be an endeavor whose principle source of enjoyment comes from its convenience.  If things were only about convenience we would have pizza delivered for dinner every night.  I don't want my connection to all of the music ever created to be conducted through a tiny little device that is primarily designed to be used as part of a one person experience.  Sure, an iPod, - and we have two of these devices in our house for the record - can be attached to a stereo or the sound system of an automobile and dispensed for those within earshot to hear it.  Yet, the idea of the iPod and other devices like it is to regain control of our music; control over what songs we want to omit from our records; control over what order we want our songs to be played; control over what genres play nice with each other; and control over the idea a tiny digital image or series of zeroes and ones compressed into a degradable format with a little jpeg attached for a visceral experience.  There are times when this model of convenience and portability comes in handy.  Road trips, jogging and walking are certainly times when it's not only inconvenient to listen to old fashioned records, but it is indeed fabulous to take loads of music in my pocket.  That is why an iPod should be in existence; so that my records can still come with me to a place where records don't make sense.  The iPod is a Plan B for when the vinyl of Plan A is impractical.  It should not be a way to make Plan A unnecessary or obsolete.  This control has its place, but the impermanence of the equation takes too much enjoyment away for me in a place like my living room.

Perhaps the most nefarious use of the iPod is that it's changing the idea of music listening forever, whether it means to or not.  I will not, absolutely will not, go on some audiophile diatribe about why vinyl sounds better.  In very much the same way that I would never waste my time and yours to cover the merits of large format HD televisions or rave about the impracticality, nay stupidity, of the 3D television craze.  This will not become a discussion of fidelity, bass frequencies or listening quality.  Frankly, I don't care about any of that.  The quality of the sounds coming from your stereo is none of my concern.  What frosts my cookies here is that music has become a virtual thing.  It has come to be perceived like air.  It is out there floating around and if you want it, you go get it - sort of.  You open up iTunes or Grooveshark or a bit torrent site and get your fix.  As a consumer, even if we pay for the music we listen to there is almost no sacrifice.  There is no wait.  There is no sense of accomplishment.  It is all too available and it's all too easy to get at.  Because of this, we tend to view music through very much the same lens that we tend to view the stuff piled up at a weekend garage sale crammed in a weathered Banker's Box with a big sign marked FREE STUFF.  If it was any good, we wouldn't be able to get it so easily.

I can remember being in my teens and early twenties trudging down to the local record store at midnight on a Monday to snag a copy of the brand new Morrissey LP or the next R.E.M. record.  It was as much about the experience of buying the record as it was about the music itself.  On the car ride home there was the frantic removal of cellophane to reveal liner notes, lyric sheets and photo spreads.  All these things were then pored over meticulously both on the way home and during the first few nascent listens of the new purchase.  There was a physical joy and a sense of success in the purchase of a new record.  Now, it's a simple megaupload click at 2:41 in the morning something like three weeks before the record actually comes out.  No anticipation and no communal experience - just a meager and minimized reward with no interaction or genuine effort.  To a grizzled old record buyer, this seems a sad and lonely substitute for the mild satisfaction of having to wait a few days fewer.

There is also a magical creative captivity of listening to a record on vinyl.  There are a handful of carefully sequenced songs crammed into fifteen or twenty minutes on a grooved side of wax.  The technology is designed to keep you from manipulating it.  There are no options for custom playlists or shuffled songs.  You put the needle down and you listen to those records until the side is over.  At our house, we have a vinyl only on the stereo policy and with it, a game that we inherited from some friends.  That game is known as "Flip It Or Skip It".  When the side of a record is over, the person who gets to choose the next record is welcome to flip the record from Side A to Side B or to take the record off the table and choose a new LP to listen to on one side.  My youngest daughter seems to especially appreciate this game and it's a blast to watch her ruminate over whether to flip or skip.  But, even when she doesn't like the record being played, she never tries to take it off early or skip the songs she dislikes.  She waits the side out and makes her selection.  The game teaches her patience and the understanding of how a record works in the concept of extended creativity.  Music to her is not something only seen in three minute chunks.  It has a beginning, a middle and an end.  Furthermore, the actual physical act of taking a record in your hands and being careful to flip it or put it back in its sleeve ever so carefully imparts a respect of music in a concrete way.  She sees music as an actual thing, not as blips on laptop or a list of files on a device.  Music is a thing you can scratch and see and touch and feel and smell and flip.

I openly acknowledge that I have spent a lot of money on my records.  Everyone that you have ever known has spent stupid amounts of money on something you thought was bereft of value.  Everyone - even you.  Mountains of cash have been squandered on alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, massage parlors, gambling, tickets to Michael Bay/Ben Affleck movies, alphabet soup books by Sue Grafton (A is for Awful by the way), gasoline tinged yet vaguely citrus-like energy drinks, $7 coffees and a whole lot more.  Are you aware of the estimated value of the NASCAR racing league?  I mean I have no idea what it's actually worth, but I guarantee you that it's more than the $3.57 value it has in my head.  Right now, if you think for just a few minutes you can think of at least one thing you waste money on regularly.  Ever bought some rare Beanie Babies, gone "antiquing" or scored an authentic Happy Days lunch box?  How about that Star Wars figure I see on your computer desk?  If that's original and you didn't get it when you were 9, you paid the street value of half of my records for it.  It's all relative and we live in the same nerdy, ramshackle glass house of cultural guilt.  Let's move on and stop judging each other.  Beanie Babies?  Really?  Jesus Christ!  But I digress.

Yes, I have spent - even wasted at times - lots of money on records.  However, vinyl is still the most cost effective way to build a sizable collection of music you want to own.  From used bins at local stores to record shows, estates sales and flea markets, record deals are out there for the intrepid music buyer.  For the record buyer with a bit of adventure a hunt for used records can lead to interesting conversations, finds of an Indiana Jones style proportion and even a few new friends.  Yes, it is exactly like bird watching or antique hunting or going for wine tastings, except that when you do those things you are almost assured of never scoring a clean copy of the White Album for five dollars at a small town library sale while on vacation with your kids.  Record hunting can remind you that there will always be more great records out there than you can keep up with and that finding a fifty cent collection of Conway Twitty hits is far more memorable and interesting - at least to me - than downloading a pirated version of the latest Rascall Flats album.

If you were there, at that party in that rec room way back when, you know what real records are and you know that they aren't something you file with thumbnails in some bullshit program that recommends more virtual files to you based on algorithms.  If you were in that room you know that the way the record sticks to the inner sleeve with a palpable static electricity the first time you slide it from it's shiny paper womb.  You know the gentle balancing act of the edge of a vinyl record resting on the cushy butt of your palm while your carefully extended fingertips cradle the label in the record's center as you ferry it to the turntable.  You know that holding a 12" x 12" record jacket comes with a musty overtone that is the aroma of youth and freedom and feels like promise in your own two hands.  And you know, more than anything, that in some way, when the moment is just so, vinyl can take you back to that room and smell that smell of summer and hear that laughter and flip (or skip) a record or two.