Reading old entries and laughing incredulously at how unwell I was.

Late last night we went for a drive
You were miles away, I asked “Who’s on your mind?”
You said “Nobody, why do you ask?”
Oh, it’s her again. I could have told you that.

One of the many reasons “Pete and Pete” is still amazing even after the nostalgia goggles come off is how much McRobb/Viscardi were committed to the 80′s college rock paradigm. Is there another television show that invoked this world so heavily? If there is, let me know. Regardless, so many cameos on this show that have no bearing on millennial nostalgia. Ann Magnuson. Marshall Crenshaw. “Wellsville” itself is an Embarrassment reference. Maybe craziest of all is that Michael Stipe and Kate Pierson show up in the same god damn episode.

This has got me thinking about two things: 1. What other characters from the R.E.M. expanded universe should have had cameos on the show and 2. Imagine this show was made a few years after the fact and the creators were more invested in the NIRVANA expanded universe- who would play what roles? To which I answer:

1. Mitch Easter would have been great for a walk-on role on “Pete and Pete.” The dude is so short and so weird-looking that he could have played one of Little Pete’s friends. How funny would that be? For some reason I also really would have liked to see Chris Stamey make an appearance. Imagine Chris Stamey as Inspector 34. I don’t know man that kind of stuff just cracks me up.

2. Who would be Miss Fingerwood? Is Syd Straw : R.E.M. :: Kat Bjelland : Nirvana? Would Kat Bjelland be Miss Fingerwood? Who would Calvin Johnson be? Maybe Calvin Johnson could have been Captain Scrummy and Kathleen Hannah could have been the Wrigley’s blind neighbor. What second-tier Seattle band would have done the theme song? Gas Huffer? Imagine this show with a Gas Huffer theme song. It wouldn’t be as good but I’d still love it. Mostly I would like to see Courtney Love play Eunice Pewell. 

Made this playlist of feel-good/relaxing rock songs to make your day suck less.

(Source: Spotify)

“You won’t be happy with me, but give me one more chance. You won’t be happy anyway.”

Is there a word for a piece of art/culture that seeks to expand on one specific facet of another? The closest thing I can think of is “pastiche,” and pastiche is usually a good word for what I’m talking about, if inadvertently. I’ve been thinking about it since I saw “It Follows,” which seemed to ask the question: “What if we appropriated the elements of the best 30 seconds from any John Carpenter movie and made a whole movie out of it?” Similarly, I listened to Sting’s “Ten Summoners Tales” the other day and loved about half of it, but felt that what I liked was articulated just as well on CFCF’s “Radiance and Submission,” which, if not directly influenced by early 90’s Sting is definitely mirroring the aesthetic that it’s a part of. And I like the CFCF album more because it doesn’t have any shitty rock numbers that are so condensed they sound like they were recorded using the “Zydeco 1” setting on Casio Chord. So anyway help me out.

I like Hayden’s “Everything I Long For” a lot, but I can’t really get a read on whether it’s actually good or not. It’s kind of out of my wheelhouse in a few ways, mostly in its post-grunge riffy-ness and Hayden’s affected, guttural vocals. The latter is most present on “When This Is Over,” a song sung from the perspective of one of Susan Smith’s murdered sons as the car fills up with lake water. Is this an OK thing to write a rock song about? No, and it’s the nihilism of the very concept that makes that song so incredible. Indeed, a lot of the album’s charm is in how bluntly it expresses a depressive outlook. I can’t think of a sad bastard sentiment funnier or truer than “things are as bad as they seem.”

I’ve never met anyone my own age who has any connection to this album, but I’ve had a few enthusiastic conversations with dudes who were teenagers when it came out. I guess somewhat similarly, I don’t think I have ever met a person who has seen the movie “Trees Lounge,” even though it doesn’t seem particularly obscure. I’ve only seen it once, but I think about it often. It’s a movie about deep personal history with a really strong sense of place, that place being suburban Long Island in the summertime. And while this indie rock song sung by a 25 year old is stylistically incongruent with this movie primarily about middle aged, blue collar alcoholics, it fits the mood surprisingly well. Mostly, though, I am just baffled that this song exists, and that it contains actual lines from the movie whose soundtrack it appeared on, as if it was a Will Smith tie-in. Steve Buscemi’s drunken pick up lines make for pretty good lyrics though: “You’ve got a pretty name. Pretty, like your name.”

I’ve sure known a lot of dummies.

Most Moz videos contain at least one bit of uproarious comedy, but I gotta say, the moment around the two minute mark when he sings “Table is rumbling…” and falls out of his chair is on par with the part in the “Just Like Heaven” video when Robert Smith literally “spins on a dizzy edge,” clearly at the suggestion of someone who wasn’t him.

Just ate three rolls of Pez out a Darth Vader dispenser while playing Super Mario World on my brand new Retron2 SOS I am becoming a POS.