long nights

Played a show with my Misfits cover band last night. It was our third show since last Halloween. It was really good, definitely our best performance yet. I had been really nervous in the days leading up to it because I’m still new to drumming and would struggle occasionally with two of our songs in particular. But I played pretty well at the show, and I was really happy with our overall performance. There were a couple mistakes but we recovered well from them and that’s as satisfying as playing a song well in the first place, oddly enough.

I still have some mixed feelings about the show though. There were lots of young people there for the first two bands so I was like “wow, so cool to see so many young people at an all ages show.” But most of those young people disappeared when the third band played. That band had hardly anyone in there watching so I felt a little bad for them. I had seen lots of Misfits shirts before we played so I imagined the place would fill up again when we played, and we definitely had more people watching us than the third band but not as many as those first two bands, and the kids watching those bands were really into it, dancing around and shit, probably because they are like 16 and excited and overstimulated because it’s all new and exciting to them. The people who were into us are not 16 so they show enjoyment differently. That’s something I understand but still struggle to apply in real life — like, if I don’t see people headbanging or jumping around, I feel like they can’t really be digging it, even though I’m definitely part of the “I’m thoroughly enjoying this but I don’t like headbanging or jumping around anymore” crowd myself. It’s weird, it’s something I need to work on really grasping and accepting.

Despite that, I still felt like I could feel the sedate audience appreciating what we were doing, and that made me happy. Plus me being happy with our performance is paramount, that is easily the most important aspect of every show, every band practice. It just feels good to make a bunch of noise that I love, with good pals. So that aspect was immensely satisfying.

I also feel really relieved that this show is over, that I don’t have to stress about it anymore, dealing with advance tickets and worrying about fucking songs up, etc. But at the same time I’m sad that it’s over, because it turned out to be a lot of fun. Just the usual post-event melancholy, I suppose.

We have another show in two weeks. That one is at Kate’s friend’s house party. I’m not nervous about it now but I bet I will be as we get closer to it. Right now I’m just pumped for it. Seems like it might be a good show for us in that there will be more Misfits fans who know the songs and are pumped to sing along or whatever. Plus I’ll have more bubble tea options in Vic, lol.

Other notable details from last night:

• The venue was weird, very old school Duncan hippie/stoner/art freak collective vibe. Not my scene but I’m very happy it exists.
• After the show, we had packed all the gear into the car. Only two seats left. Ben was going to walk to his airbnb but Jenn and I wanted to give him a ride. Jenn suggested I drive him there, then come back and get her. There were still people at the venue for her to hang out with so I thought it was a good idea. Drove Ben the five minutes or so to his place, came back. Jenn was pissed when I got back and I didn’t understand why but she was pretty drunk so I didn’t worry about too much at the time and figured we’d sort it out today. We got McDonald’s on the way home and Jenn was exceedingly impatient in the drive thru lineup, cursing the night staff and the people ahead of us alike, even though it wasn’t taking too long at all. When we got our food she was snarfling down the fries and said something like “I…I am me. Me fries.” That’s not a direct quote but it was along those lines, and I understood that she meant she was very hungry and very glad to be eating the fries. She was much happier after that. This morning I asked why she had been so mad when I picked her up and she said everyone else left the second I drove away with Ben, and she was left alone in the dark parking lot in a fairly sketchy area. Plus in addition to being drunk she was also on mushrooms and time was passing exceedingly slowly (which also explains her impatience in the McDonald’s drive thru) so she thought I had been gone with Ben for 45 minutes or something, and we off talking metal or looking at metal shirts or sitting cross-legged on a floor somewhere listening to vinyl records. So she walked out to the street and sat under a light on the sidewalk so at least she’d be visible and less likely to be assaulted, and felt like she waited there an eternity for me. I feel bad now because that was definitely not an ideal situation for her to be left in, but we didn’t know it was going to go like that so it’s just kind of a ‘live and learn’ thing. Also, some pretty funny moments came out of it so I’m glad we have those memories now.

human nature, indeed

A few nights ago I heard the Michael Jackson song ‘Human Nature’ play on the radio. I’ve loved that song since I was a little kid. I’ve always found it light and airy and beautiful, but kind of weird and spooky too. So I was just appreciating those qualities when I suddenly thought, wait a minute — Jackson was a serial child molester and his shit still gets played on the radio, meanwhile everyone else who even says something remotely questionable these days is getting completely cancelled. Wtf?

Bald-faced hypocrisy. I think this says a lot about us, about our culture, about humanity even. I think it shows that if we simply like someone’s art enough, or if we have enough convenient excuses (“he’s dead and can’t defend himself,” or “he was never REALLY convicted so we don’t know for sure,” etc), or if we just don’t want to believe the awful truth that even the seemingly sweetest individuals are capable of atrocities, or if someone is a big enough star, we can disregard even the most heinous crimes.

And for the record, I think it’s absurd for anyone to believe Jackson wasn’t a predator. I always come back to this point: if I was known to have numerous children come sleep over at my house for days on end and sleep in the same bed with me (things Jackson himself admitted to), you would think, “this freak is a predator.” You wouldn’t think twice about it, and that’s absolutely fair. So why would you not make the same assumption about Jackson? Because you’re in denial and don’t want to hate the man, that’s why.

Personally, I don’t know where I stand on the “art and artist are inseparable” argument. I guess the thing is, I can certainly enjoy art that was made by an awful person. We are all guilty of some level of awful-ness anyway, none of us are innocent, so where do we draw the line where we decide to completely disallow a person’s art? It seems a crazy thing to do in that sense. And just because someone is a shit human doesn’t mean they are incapable of making great art so why deprive ourselves of that great art if it exists? Refusing to enjoy it doesn’t undo the crimes the artist perpetrated so it’s kind of a pointless effort.

But, I certainly wouldn’t want to give my money to someone I found reprehensible, to give them the means to continue to do harm in the world. And I know that after learning about Woody Allen’s story, I don’t know if I can watch another film of his without the experience being tainted by the knowledge of his crimes. And I guess I have that same thing with Jackson since I couldn’t listen to Human Nature, one of my fave songs of all time, without feeling the need to write this post.

Conclusions:

• Sometimes when an artist is awful enough, it can ruin my experience of their art.
• I don’t want to financially support any artist I deem to be too awful as a human being.
• But if I can still enjoy a monster’s art and not financially support them while doing so, I’m ok with that.
• I’m somewhere in the middle on the “art and the artist are inseparable” argument, surprise surprise.
• Humanity at large is a whole bunch of fucking hypocrites who have their head in the sand about Michael Jackson, and I wish we could all just admit that. Any time we hear an MJ song, we should all at least think “what a fucking monster, why did we allow him to do this to so many kids right under our noses and under our watch, just because he was a giant star, we need to get over this fucked star culture obsession we have, etc” before we go on humming and bobbing our heads because the song is legit really fucking good.

I’m not going to post Human Nature here because I don’t want Jackson’s estate receiving any more money from it, unless they can drop the ridiculous farce and own up to his crimes.

the feel-bad movement

For years, I’ve been saying that the movies I enjoy most now are the ones that make me feel the worst — like, the opposite of a feel-good movie. I want a feel-bad movie.

Also for the last few years, I’ve been thinking a lot about the music I want to write and record for myself. There isn’t a lot of truly nihilistic, misanthropic death metal out there, and what is out there is mostly trash. I hate that. I want more high quality, anti-human death metal, so that’s what I’m going to make.

It wasn’t until the other day when I had a conversation with Cody and Dunya about these topics (at their very nice new apartment) that I put the two of them together and realized that I want to join the feel-bad art movement. Or start it, since there actually isn’t one that I’m aware. There are just a handful of various albums and films I love that make me feel like shit, and I want to add to that catalogue.

So there, that’s basically my latest mission statement as an artist: I want to make good quality feel-bad art, that makes me feel wonderfully awful. If I end up starting or being part of an existing movement, hip hip hooray, that’s nice, but it’s not necessary.

People I See: Good Neighbours complainer

Time for a series in my blog. I’m going to call it People I See, because that’s exactly what it will be about, usually in Duncan. I usually text Bill about these people, sometimes I email Ben about them, but I want a better record so I’m going to try writing about them here.

Here’s #1. Skinny 50-ish year old male, limp wrists, bit of a lisp, certain lilt to his speech, looking at books at Good Neighbours thrift store. Out of nowhere, starts complaining to me about magazines at thrift stores. “They just go mouldy, no one wants them, who even donates this crap” he says. I decide he’s harmless enough and respond with a polite laugh. He continues on, complaining about people buying used underwear at thrift stores, and even used shoes (he said this to me as I was clearly looking at used shoes). Starts complaining about his alcoholic roommate who he recently evicted, talks about how difficult it was to get rid of him, how alcoholics are a real pain in the ass. I point out you can’t reason with an addict, that they are ruled by their addiction. The complainer agrees and goes on complaining. Tells me during covid he started some big art piece on the walls of his apartment, put big holes in the wall, oh well he had to do something to keep himself from going crazy due to covid and his roommate over the last year. Says the art piece is about America. He is holding some ceramic dolphins or flip flops or something like that, says he’s getting them to add to the piece to represent Florida. “Whatever it takes to get you through this” I say, or something equally banal. By now I’ve become bored of the complainer and wander off to look at beautifully hideous old laundry hampers and toaster ovens that I don’t need now that I already have some at home, yet can’t stop coveting. I wish I knew people I could buy this shit for. I guess I am an addict myself.

do you want to know what i’m thinking about right now?

I haven’t been blogging much lately but it’s mostly because the stuff I want to blog about is not suitable for blogging. Too personal, too intimate. The kind of stuff I would be happy to talk about with a good friend or therapist but not here. Sorry Tom.

I think another reason for not writing much lately is that I’ve been doing lots of the same stuff over and over due to the pandemic. That’s ok, I’m still generally quite happy to gather tacky 70’s household shit, bake, exercise, listen to chillwave, watch sci fi and horror movies, and fuck around with house plants, but after a year and a half there aren’t a lot of new thoughts on those things to dig into here.

Oh, there is something I want to mention. I’m feeling really, really fucking torn on creating some art. I have a lot of feelings I want to express through weird music and words but without a band or a convenient way to record the stuff, I feel like it’s pointless to bother writing the stuff. I guess I really need to jump on the smart phone recording bandwagon, since it’s supposed to be so fragging easy. It would be a way to express some of the stuff I mentioned in the first paragraph, a way to say things without people knowing what I’m actually saying. I would really like that. Ok fuck, I need to do this. Time to add “learn how to do home recording with smart phone” to my to-do list.

San Junipero: what makes art good, or at least popular?

Why is San Junipero everyone’s favourite Black Mirror episode? I don’t know but I’m part of the crowd on this one. I remember getting teary-eyed when I watched it, and it has stuck with me since then — every time I hear Heaven Is A Place On Earth, I now whimsically think of San Junipero.

At first, I didn’t realize anyone else liked that episode as much as me. I thought I was probably a weirdo for liking the happiest, love story-est Black Mirror episode best of all, but then I chatted with some friends and a lot of them felt the same as me. Then I looked it up and I realized that tons of people feel the same way — San Junipero has even won a bunch of awards and shit! Who would have guessed? Not me, obviously.

Of all of Black Mirror — a series that is has largely been heaped with praise — why would one episode stand out to so many people as being even better than all the others? Is it because of the warmer, more human elements? That seems like the biggest obvious difference between it and its brethren. Maybe it’s also the nostalgic 80’s elements though, they probably resonate strongly with the demographic that must make up the bulk of Black Mirror’s audience. I mean, look at how wildly popular Stranger Things has been, and you know a lot of that is just from the 80’s nostalgia mainline we all get from it. I can’t recall offhand if any other BM episodes are set in the 80’s or have as strong a sense of wistful sentimentality as San Junipero but I don’t think so. I think that is probably a big part of its massive appeal.

Or could it be the episode is just really well written, well directed, well acted? Maybe it’s one of those things where everything aligned just so, and this amazing, cohesive, beautiful piece of art was birthed. Maybe everyone involved in the project just really believed in and enjoyed the experience of creating it, and that joy bled into the piece itself. That’s something I think about a lot. I mean, I know that’s kind of a cop out explanation — it’s like the art equivalent of saying “God must have done it.” You can’t prove or disprove it, and I hate that. But I do find that when people really love and believe in what they’re doing, their enthusiasm comes through in their performance. They are looser, more honest, more believable — I’m more familiar with music than film so I can give measurables for this kind of thing in terms of musical performances but I believe the same must go for acting, camera work, set design, and every other aspect of film. So yeah, it’s not a total bullshit argument. Just vague and subjective.

Relevant and interesting: when I looked up images for San Junipero, I found quite a few fan art pieces (I presume) that parallel the artwork that is commonly used in the chillwave/synthwave/retrowave mixes that I listen to. Palm trees, silhouettes of mountains, sunset, grids, relaxing and nostalgic pinks and purples and blues. Like this:

And this:

Isn’t that funny that I unwittingly fell in love with two things that share so much in common. I mean, San Junipero is basically the film equivalent of the music I’ve been digging so much lately — futuristic, nostalgic, bittersweet, dream-like — and other people have clearly made the connection between the two already. How about that. I mean, I was keenly aware of the 80’s nostalgia element but not the other commonalities.

Well, there are lots of obvious reasons why I love San Junipero but I’m still not sure why everyone else does. Ok, maybe now I’ll let myself read some analyses on it.

entertainment capitalizing on important social issues

Shout out to Golda on this one.

This week, I tried watching the tv series, I May Destroy You. (Side note: it’s funny I just called it a tv series when most people don’t watch scheduled tv programming anymore. I guess VOD series, or simply just ‘series’ would be more correct.) There were a few things I liked about I May Destroy You but I ended up giving up on it because I don’t like shows that are so singularly focused on topics that they just aren’t realistic. I fully agree that consent (sexual consent, in particular), the lack of it, and all the shades of grey in between, are important topics that need to be talked about in depth by everyone. However, I don’t think dedicating a tv series (there it is again…) to the topic works well, because in order to do that every character in the show needs to be having sex with different people virtually every day. Maybe some people really do live like that but I don’t know anyone who does, let alone a half dozen or more, and that makes it tough for me to swallow. In this way, it’s similar to stupid sitcoms like The Office — am I supposed to believe that none of those characters in The Office have any substantial friends or families or anything at all going on outside their zany workplace friendships and antics? It’s asinine. Likewise, am I supposed to believe that every character in IMDY has sex with different people on a daily basis, or even multiple partners on any given day? That’s absurd. Who could possibly have time for that? When do these people eat, when do they work, how do they pay rent, when do they go to the grocery store, when do they sleep? I can’t get past this.

So I stopped watching IMDY because that aspect bugged me. But another thing that bugs me, and this is obviously a bigger problem, is the weird conflict of interest I see in art addressing social issues while also seeking to be commercially successful. I know these things are far from mutually exclusive — it could certainly be argued it doesn’t matter where the conversation comes from, just as long as the conversation is being brought up, but I can’t help but question the legitimacy of the conversation when it’s rooted in Hollywood making big bucks. I mean, the reason a show like IMDY is out now is because there is a market for it, and there is money to be made off that market. I think that’s sickening, turning legitimately important topics into consumable entertainment.

Maybe I’m being too idealistic though, too pie-in-the-sky. Maybe I should look at this from the perspective of being happy that there is now a market for socially conscious shit. Yeah, the soulless shills who are eager to do whatever is necessary to profit from whatever they can are still real life vampire scum, but those people will always exist anyway so why not at least put them to use in making something that has at least some kind of a positive effect? IMDY is obviously better than more, I dunno, reality dating shows for influencers.

^{nuke these fucks}

Ok, I talked myself off the ledge. That’s good. I still don’t like IMDY though.

the artistic validity of remakes/reboots

Holy toledo, I’ve had some time off work lately and it’s been fantastic. There is so much stuff I’d rather be doing than working, it’s incredibly rare that I’m ever bored. Yesterday I finished the stuff I wanted to do and still had much of the day left so I went and hung out with the animals in the yard for a while, which doesn’t sound like much but it’s actually very restorative. It’s nice to spend time with gentle, friendly creatures that appreciate some rubs and scratches. Then I noticed our “lawn” (I use the term loosely, it’s more a collection of rocks, potholes, and a wide variety of weeds) was getting out of hand so I brought Kup the Lawnmower out and tamed that shit. FYI for his fan club, Kup is doing just fine. His blade bearing made a little bit of noise but wasn’t too bad. I used to hate mowing the lawn because it reminded me of when my dad used to make me do it but after having my own lawn for about 12 years now, I finally feel like doing it for myself, and it’s actually pretty satisfying. Then I still had some time left before dinner so I *gasp* made a salad to go with it. It’s funny that I recently made that post about how much I hate cooking because I’ve actually been doing a little bit of it since then, just because I’ve had the time for it lately, and I haven’t minded it. I wonder what else I would enjoy more if I had more free time.

This is all just an extremely verbose way of saying that I’m really grateful to have the time to, along with all the things I just mentioned, blog in morning. I was just chatting with a friend about horror movie remakes and reboots, and I think I want to dive into that. I’m dang lucky to have the luxury to spend a lazy morning doing this.

I said to my friend that I was generally not a fan of remakes — of course there’s an occasional great one (like Cronenberg’s The Fly or Carpenter’s The Thing) but I think they tend to be artless cash grabs. There has been an absolute torrent of them in the last 15 years, and a lot of those are remakes of films that came out just a few years prior. When a flick seems like a real piece of shit that no one involved with feels passionately about, and when it’s an obscure horror film that isn’t likely to make as much as it cost to create, I can’t help but wonder what the point of that flick is — if it’s not for the money, and not for the art, why is anyone doing it? Busy work, adding (mediocre) credentials to resumes? That’s all I can think of.

Anyway, my friend replied that cinema is a business so they can’t find fault with the cash grab aspect, that they find remakes are as good or bad as the filmmaker makes it, and this applies to film adaptations of popular books too.

At first I thought my friend was right on all fronts but the more I’ve thought about it, the less I agree. All art involves business at some point but that doesn’t excuse all the disposable art of the world. If I had the choice between hanging something special and cool on my walls, or a soulless generic print of sunflowers I bought at Walmart for $7, it would only make sense to go with the former. Of course it can be argued that for some weird and rare dickheads, the $7 sunflower print speaks to them and they truly love it, but let’s remember that those people are the exception, that for 99.9% of people, the Walmart sunflower print is just something cheap and easy to fill wall space…just like shitty remakes of films that only came out five years prior are something cheap and easy to waste time with. And I have a problem with wasting time on garbage. Our time here is finite, I don’t want to spend it on junk that stinks.

I agree with my friend’s second point, that remakes and reboots are only as good or bad as the creator makes it. A remake can be awesome if the people behind it love it and are willing to put the work into it — this is not unique to remakes too, it applies to all films, and all art in general too. However, I’ve yet to see this occur with one of the immediate remakes I’m more or less condemning here.

As far as film adaptations of books go, I think that it’s a little different from remaking a film because books describe things but words are a lot less concrete and allow for broader interpretation — the reader uses those words to imagine the scene being described, whereas film gives the viewer the entire scene, as imagined by someone else. By virtue of translating from one medium to another, it’s inherent that some things will change in translation. I think that’s a good thing, it makes it more likely for the artist to make the film their own, to really put their personal stamp on it. I don’t mind films being remade decades apart because they are likely then to be different due to a variety of changes in fashion, technology, film trends, etc but these immediate remakes end up so similar to the original that they feel like a perfect exercise in redundancy to me.

I’m glad I thought this over. It can be easy sometimes to be swayed by someone else’s opinion but gosh doodle, if ya just give something a few minutes thought you sometimes realize that yup, you’re still the same stubborn self-important prick you’ve always been.

I grew up seeing the VHS box for this at the video store. I found the image scary but in a weird, inexplicable way — it wasn’t one of the ones I was drawn to, but the cover definitely made an impression on me. When I finally saw it as an adult, I was absolutely blown away. I couldn’t believe I had been missing out on it until that point. Ben thought the special effects were cheesy so I chopped him up and threw his remains in a ditch.

trailer park cadillac

My friend Marion was just telling me about a relative of hers who, back in the 50s or 60s, left her husband for another guy because the new guy had a Cadillac and she thought that was really fancy. The new guy lived in a trailer park but she didn’t care because he drove a CADILLAC. I think that’s hilarious.

The stupid thing is that if we transplant that story to modern times and say someone I know left their partner to live in a trailer park with someone else who owned an Escalade, the story just doesn’t have any magic or fun to it. It’s just pathetic and depressing. I wonder if it’s the distance I have from the 50s and 60s that make it pleasant for me.

Moving on. I was recently given an awesome harvest gold stove and fridge set but they are absolutely fucking toxic — how toxic? I put the shelves and bins from the fridge in the front of my truck while I loaded the appliances into the back, and when I got in to drive away I was gagging on the smell. At first I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from and wondered if I had stepped in something gross. Then I realized the horrible truth. I’ve currently logged about six hours cleaning them, and I probably have another four to go.

That’s just a fun side note though. What I wanted to say is that, with all the time I’ve been spending madly scrubbing every surface of this fridge, I thought about how the most poignant, elevated art that brings us to tears is all probably inspired by mundane and even annoying shit. I’ve had some great songs in my head while I’ve been cleaning, like Scarred by Dream Theater (which has been close to my heart since I was a teen), and I started thinking about how that song was probably inspired by a dumb argument that John Petrucci had with his girlfriend that started over whose turn it was to do the dishes and morphed into a “why don’t you respect me” thing, or maybe he was in church and thought the person sitting next to him was really annoying. And it’s just nuts that such banal shit can lead to art that communicates beautifully complex emotional, spiritual things, that resonates with people in the deepest ways. It’s amazing, and it’s a good thing we don’t know what inspires most of the art we love because that would probably ruin it for us.

The things you consider when scrubbing mold out of 45 year old fridge. Btw I’m at about 12 hrs of cleaning now.

It will be worth it.

My review of the film, Mother! (2017)

My pal recommended Mother! to me a while back and I finally watched it last night (well, part of it — I was so bored and annoyed by it that I had to fast forward to the end when there was at least some violence and gore to hold my attention). I just emailed him my thoughts about it and decided I would post that email here since it basically serves as an extremely casual review of the film. In a nutshell: it sucked. Long, boring, annoying, pretentious, lacked any emotional or intellectual value.

***

I thought Mother! started fine but I was really annoyed with the main character and how much rudeness she put up with from the man and woman who ended up staying with them, and not talking about it with her husband. I found that impossible to relate to. But I realized almost immediately that the whole thing was likely a dream and that absurd things could happen in that world, which I think is kind of a lazy, easy out for a film maker.

There were a lot of recurring “themes” in the movie (I hate using that term for this because I feel like it denotes something serious and artistic whereas this film was not that, it was just a director making a point to mention or show a few things throughout the movie repeatedly to make is seem serious and artistic), like pregnancy, children, yellow powder, shattered glass, rot, but like I just said they all felt meaningless to me.

I thought the film was way too long at 2 hrs. It didn’t need all that time to get its point across, and I’m sure I would have liked it more and maybe not needed to fast forward through the second half if it had been edited down. It took too long to establish that it was basically a dream, and went on and on with rude people and absurd situations that felt pointless.

Oh jeez, I just read the plot on the wikipedia page and it’s even more pretentious than the film! It only refers to the husband as ‘Him’ and the woman as ‘mother.’ This is ridiculous. Lol, and the directors comments on the ‘themes’ of the film are laughable. He sounds like a junior high school student talking about how brilliant their shit is. What a joke. Huh, looking at his filmography, Requiem for a Dream is the only one I like. I thought the others sucked. What a shocker.

The only things I liked were how obscenely sexy the main chick was (what a body, hubba hubba), and some of the violence and gore at the end. Like when the soldier’s face is shot off, she gets the shit kicked out of her by the crowd, the baby’s neck is snapped and then it’s just a pile of guts on the table, and when the guy pulls her heart out. The rest of it was dumb. Man, Aronofsky is a pretentious twat. He’s like a wannabe David Lynch without the intellectual chops or emotional instinct.

***

There you go. Why doesn’t someone pay me to review movies? I’m good at this.

Thumbs down for everything