Live, Baby, Live!

To be fair, I liberally borrowed the title of this post from an INXS live concert DVD but felt it was apropos since I'm here to talk about live music. This will be a rant, it may not be well constructed or well executed, but I felt like throwing this stuff down so...yeah.


I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned how much I love live music and seeing bands in concert here before but it's kind of a big deal to me. Music is such a huge part of my life and that loud, sweaty, crowded experience is integral to my overall enjoyment of it. I've had my mind changed at concerts regarding how I feel about a song I previously disliked and I've had artists show themselves to me in a different light than I am accustomed to, bringing me around to appreciating their material where previously I did not. I've fallen in love at concerts and even proposed to my soon to be ex-wife at a concert. Sure, some shows are just shows, but some have served as genuine benchmarks or signposts in my life. Moments I can revisit every time I listen to an album or hear a song that means something special in a mall or in the car while driving to work.

I know I probably sound like a ridiculous, sentimental fool by this point but I own it. I know how goofy I sound, and that's okay. It's how I feel and that's just the way it is. I am prepared for you to judge me and stop reading right here if you haven't already.


The whole purpose of this post is to lament the fact that I haven't been to see a live show in quite some time. The last concert I saw was on March 29th and I went to see Stars with a friend. Amazing show, unforgettable night. Even got to meet Torq after the show and complete my Stars autograph collection so, yay me. I had tickets to see Passion Pit a few months ago but they cancelled and I've passed up or was forced to miss shows by M83, The XX, Phantogram, The National and a stupid amazing lineup at the Rock the Seine festival that I was a week late to see. Gah!!



I'm chomping at the bit, here.

Anyway, there are a couple of decent shows down the road that I'm looking forward to maybe going to in 2014 but I don't know if there is anything coming up before Christmas and that's not cool. Looks like Said the Whale is here in a week or so. Maybe that'll help take the edge off a bit. We'll see.

Later.

Siamese Dreaming

I've got a little free time on my hands and I've been going through my music collection, filling holes, organizing what's already there, and listening to a lot of stuff I haven't had on rotation for a while.

One such album/srtist would be Siamese Dream by Smashing Pumpkins which I consider to be one of the best rock albums ever. No hyperbole. The songs, the words, the sounds, are all tremendously good and so very tight. The layered guitars, the insane drums, the ethereal quality of Corgan's voice and lyrics which, I would say, has never been recaptured on any other Pumpkins album make this album near-perfect for me. If I'm trying to get someone to listen to the Pumpkins, I usually toss them Siamese Dream.

Now, from everything I've read and heard, after all the tracks had been put down, Corgan went back and rerecorded the guitars and bass originally played by D'arcy and James Iha. The only tracks he didn't mess with were those of Jimmy Chamberlin because Corgan did not know how to play the drums. This would, if the stories are true, make the whole album a collaboration between Corgan and Chamberlin and all that implies.

Other albums followed but most without Chamberlin as he was kicked out of the band after a keyboardist they were touring with died as a result of a drug overdose which Chamberlin was involved with. I won't get into details but the story is probably detailed here.

Flash forward to the 2007 release of the newly reformed Pumpkins album, Zeitgeist. Now, when I say newly reformed, I should qualify that D'arcy and Iha did not return to the lineup for the same reasons they left the band in the first place. Chamberlin, however, did take the opportunity to reconnect with his old band as Corgan had never agreed to losing him in the first place. So, we have Corgan and Chamberlin together again working on this 'new' album - the same guys who were essentially responsible for Siamese Dream - and it turns out to be utter shit. I don't even consider it a part of the true Pumpkins canon because it sounds like a band trying to sound like the Pumpkins rather than actual founding members of the band making up for lost time.

So, what went wrong? I dunno. Maybe D'arcy and Iha had a much stronger influence on the music than people give them credit for. Maybe Butch Vig was instrumental in bringing everything on SD together the way it did. All I know is that the same guys did it perfectly once and cocked it up royally the second time around. Go figure. Maybe it's true what they say about how you can never really go home again.

And on that note...

Later!

mike

Size Isn't Everything

I'm going through some of my books to find and record where I'd left off in each of them for my GoodReads page when I came to a particular volume entitled "Vicious Circle" by Mike Carey. This is the second of five novels featuring the occult investigator, Felix Castor, and runs for a lengthy 512 pages, or so. Tracking down my last known place in the book I was reminded of just how god-awful long this thing was, and remembered why I put the book down in the first place. I hit 3 or 400 pages in and just sort of petered out. This is not a story that requires 500 or more pages to tell. It is well written, sure, but I think someone needed to reign him in on this one. It's not even the longest of the series, but it's still a marathon read. I was honestly considering picking it up again to finish it off, but now, probably not anytime soon.

I know it's probably a quirk of my own reading habits, but when there are a dozen other books that are waiting in the wings that I've started, and a dozen more that I'm waiting to get to, "Vicious Circle" just falls a little short on the priority level.

Cheers!

mike

Second Chances

I went to see Raiders of the Lost Ark at a local theatre today and found it to be a near-biblical event as far as my cinematic experiences go. I'll probably post about it in the near future but, for now, and seeing as how I'm kind of in an Indy mood now, I thought I would post this video about sequels that should get a little more credit because of the number one movie included on the list, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The reviewer/commentator makes some interesting points throughout which I think many internet reviewer/commentators should maybe take to heart.



Now, I'm going to go read a bit, then hit the sack.

Take care!

mike

I Get By With A Little Help...

I quoth the Beatles as my subject line for this post because I wanted to stress how important it is to create relationships with the people who work at the establishments you frequent.

Case in point, I was having some trouble with accessing my library account earlier this week when I wanted to renew a few books I had out. For whatever reason, the online service was shutting me out of the system and claiming my account was already in use by the system. I couldn't renew, I started accumulating fines. This went on for a couple of days and I finally got a chance to go in to my local library and talk to the folks that I deal with there on a regular basis. I explained my situation, they trusted me implicitly (as they should), and they not only erased any fines that accumulated during the problem period, but also anything else that was lingering on the account.

It helps that we're also well known for paying off any fines that gather up, and we generally have no problem doing so because we basically look at it as a donation to the library since those funds do help them continue to function in the capacity they do. So, that, combined with a healthy bit of face recognition and a good reputation, pretty much went a good ways to making my day today. It was a nice way to cap off a rather strange day at work (something I won't expand on).

I guess the moral of the story (possibly a first for a Meanwhile... post) is to not be a jerk, be friendly and courteous, and what goes around will come around.

Or, as another famous rock group is known for saying, be excellent to each other.

Cheers!

mike

Curses, Spoiled Again

So, I'm reading The Strain by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan and more-or-less enjoying the experience so I hit the 'net and check out the official site to see if they have any fun stuff there. They kind of do and kind of don't, but that's neither here nor there for this story. I clicked over to their Facebook page and was just browsing through pictures and poking around when I see a wall post by some d-bag named Vojtěch Weiss who totally drops not one, but two, spoilers in one blow, effectively spoiling a good chunk of the last 20 pages of the book I am just about to finish.

Not only that, but the second one ruins a plot point from the second book, The Fall, which I recently purchased and was going to start reading very soon.

This development makes me cranky. I'm not usually a spoiler sensitive person but something about these two were just touchy enough to make me surly and get my stomach acids bubbling. I guess I should know better than to recklessly peruse online but I did, and I did so without taking the proper precautions.

That'll learn me.

Later!

mike

Red Hulk, Green Hulk, Go!

I was going to do this on Twitter but figured I would need more than 140 characters to express my feelings on what's been going on over in the Hulk title, so without further ado...

Now, I should start by qualifying that I haven't actively purchased or read a Hulk comic since Bruce Jones and John Romita, Jr. were doing the book a few years ago. I'm not even sure how the whole Mr. Green/Mr. Blue thing panned out, unless you count what they used in the second Hulk movie. I was not overly familiar with the "World War Hulk" storyline that ran for a while, and I pretty much ignored the Red Hulk material that Loeb and McGuiness were on about, so it had been a while since I knew what was going on with the guy. To say the least, I was surprised to find that the, along with the new Red Hulk (who was, in actuality, General 'Thunderbolt' Ross - Oh, the irony!), pretty much every other character in the Hulk universe got Hulkified by The Leader and...M.O.D.O.K., I think.

All kinds of crazy stuff has been going on since I've been gone, and the Hulk's single Incredible book has branched out into a family of books: Hulk, Incredible Hulk, & Incredible Hulks. Let me know if I've missed any.

Normally, this is not the kind of storytelling that entices me into picking up any book, especially when it's one that I've already taken off my pull list years ago. So, you ask, why am I fretting so about it?

That would be because of Jeff Parker.

I've always enjoyed Jeff's writing and still tell anyone who will listen that he is responsible for one of the single most enjoyable super-hero books I have read in my almost 30 years of reading comic books. So, you tell me he's going to be writing the book after Loeb departs and you have most certainly grabbed my attention. This is a guy who can handle the super-science, the monsters, the action, and the drama. You pair him with a talent like Gabriel Hardman who has a keen eye for visual storytelling and can draw the most outrageous action sequence or people eating soup with perfect aplomb and you have me adding it to my pile and I'm out the door with my LCS owner a few bucks richer.

Sounds like I'm loving this book like a fresh pair of socks on a cool September morning, doesn't it? Unfortunately, this is where I get conflicted about the whole shebang.

I want to like Hulk more than I do, but I'm finding it hard to fully embrace the darn thing. Oddly enough, I'm finding the character of the Red Hulk fascinating when I was certain that I wouldn't. I couldn't be bothered to even look at Loeb's issues on the shelf but I'm intrigued in these stories by how Ross is handling being the Hulk. It is so different from Banner, yet strangely similar, too. There's the alienation because he's a monster and the thrill that comes with so much power, all the things we are used to seeing with the Banner Hulk over the years. The main difference, though, is that Ross doesn't feel sorry for himself and whine about it constantly. He's a soldier and he deals with his new situation whether he likes it or not. A good example of this is in one of the early scenes of #25 where Steve Rogers is giving Ross his assignment. Steve is honestly trying to help Ross make good and have him be an asset. The tone of the dialogue, the staging of the scene, it's originally what sucked me in.

In that same issue, however, we are given an example of why I'm conflicted about this series, for as much as I am loving the character of the Red Hulk, this issue spends a great deal of it's 'running time' on a tired old super-hero team-up cliché; the fight-brought-on-by-misunderstanding-before-realizing-we-are-supposed-to-be working-together schtick. In fact, this is a cliché that gets played out for the following 2 issues, if I remember correctly, with Iron Man being followed by Thor and then Namor. Everyone wants a piece of Red Hulk, apparently, but I feel like every time they go down this road they kill all the momentum they've built up. I like my share of smashing in a Hulk comic, don't get me wrong, I just think there's more to mine here and these sequences are not adding anything useful to the overall narrative.

I remember in the '90s when Garth Ennis was writing Helblazer. I hated his run for a number of reasons I won't go into here but, without fail, every time I was going to drop the title once-and-for-all Ennis would drop an amazing single issue that had everything I needed in a Hellblazer story to make me happy. Every. Single. Time.

There's kind of a similar phenomena happening here minus the hating part. After reading #27 I was going to stop buying Hulk and move on but then #28 came out and I loved that issue. Then I read #30 and figured, okay, #30.1 would be the last one if I didn't like it but I did (although I don't think Tom Palmer should do finishes over Hardman anymore - it seems like a no-brainer but it really isn't a good thing). And in some of the cases where the main story was not grabbing me, I kinda dug the back-up featuring A-Bomb (Rick Jones) or the Watcher back-ups that are now starting to pay off in the main story.

I guess the fact that I'm bothering to take the time to write this does prove that these guys are doing something positive with this series because I'm interested enough to care. To want to see more interactions between Ross and the LMDs, to see the Fortean/Ross/Red Hulk triangle develop, and to see where sleep deprivation will eventually take the character. That, and the fact I obsess over books and movies I can't fully embrace/endorse. Really, I'll probably spend more time rereading and staring at Hulk pages than I ever will Atlas ones.

So, now I'm waiting to see what #32 will bring (I hear it's a corker) and I continue to live with this series issue to issue.

Fingers crossed!

mike

New Post

I spent a couple of hours yesterday adding and tweaking books on my GoodReads account. At first, when that sort of sank in, I thought, two hours?? Essentially databasing my books, and many of them comics/trades that I've read? But then I thought of how I went about it, drawing purchase locations and dates from memory until that was no longer an option, then skimming through my blog archives to find posts where I started with, "I just finished this great book today!" In a weird way, logging times and places, knowing that I bought George Lucas' Blockbusting at McNally Robinson Booksellers on boxing day, somehow that's important to me. Somehow, it's more than being pathological in the organization of 'my stuff' because by doing that, I'm ascribing a narrative to that book's place and time in my life. And when I'm done with it, I'll log the date completed and how many times I've read that particular book.

In a weird (and possibly sad) way, tracking my stuff is very much a part of the story of my life, just as I've found going back and skimming through blog posts here is. I used to poo-poo my efforts here, never quite knowing what I was trying to do with the blog, never quite achieving what I wanted to see with the blog, but looking back on it I've discovered that, since the beginning, I've logged a lot of moments in time, jotted down things that I had completely forgotten about until I started looking back, and left a digital trail of breadcrumbs, as it were, that I can always track back with. At least back to the inception of the blog.

I set out in the beginning to make this blog a personal journal but have spent the subsequent years trying to make it something else. Something popular, a place to express my views on pop culture, an outlet for my interviews, a production diary, you name it I've run the scenario, at least in my head if not in actual execution. What I didn't know until last night is that I succeeded. It is what I set out to make it. It is a journal, a chronology, an imprint of a certain part of the last few years of my life. It was interesting to look back on, and seeing how I've neglected it in the present, I'm hoping to step up the output a bit more and continue the process.

Cheers!

mike

Seriously?

I'm not gonna explain why, or who is involved, or what it's about, but I'm so angry right now I want to break things. It's times like these that I wish I boxed or belonged to a gym or something and that I could just go and punish myself physically or beat on something for an hour until I couldn't muster the energy to bother anymore.

I don't remember the last time I felt quite this way. I suppose I could get a lot of cleaning done around the house with all this anger built up inside.

And with that I take my leave. I just had to verbalize it, or say it publically to help take the edge off and that mission is accomplished.

Hopefully there will be something more cheerful next time you hear from me.

mike

Surprise Return

Just when you thought you'd seen the last of me for another two months, here I am.

I'm kind of sitting here at my computer, doing not much. I'm waiting for someone to contact me who I'm beginning to suspect will not, in fact, contact me, so I decided to head over to NPR and stream the new Stars album which is bloody fantastic!!! I also figured I'd pop on and do another posting. Go figger.

I don't have much to say, really. A lot of weird stuff has been going on at Meanwhile... HQ and I'm still trying to figure out exactly what that is, but there's been some soul searching, some examining of life changes and choices, and lots of other boring stuff that nobody wants to read about, I'm sure. It's part of the reason that I haven't been blogging. I've never made this much of a personal forum, reserving it for my pop cultural predilections, so this end kind of gets neglected when I'm in one of these moods/phases.

Anyway, That's all for now. Will post again soon. Promise. Hopefully it will be more interesting than this.

I will leave you however with this:



mike

To Return Or Not To Return

Last week I ordered a couple of books through Amazon.ca and they both arrived today, albeit in a damaged box. There was a big gaping wound in the corner, probably from someone putting a heavier box on top of it and it just popped. As a rsult of this packaging malfunction, the corners of my book are a little beat up and I'm trying to decide whether or not to return the book and, hopefully, get a new un-crunched version, or if I should just suck it up and keep the book as is.

I'm sure most people would look at the 'damage' and just shrug it off, but I'm a little anal with my stuff and it was an expensive coffee table book, so my expectations are a little higher than if it was a $5 paperback. I'm dying to rip the plastic off and check it out but I need to make the call before I do that, which leads me to this post and my very public ruminating on the subject.

I may leave it 'til the morning to decide.

In the meantime, I think I'm gonna go watch some Fringe or Clone Wars or something. I may even play the new AvP demo I downloaded.

Take care!

mike

Trucks and Traffic

I hate coming on here and ranting about other drivers but the last few days have made me angry enough (and the blog has been silent enough) that I thought I would come on and do a quick rant and retreat.

Why is it that if you have a truck, you have to drive like an asshole? I've had many, many, many bad experiences with trucks and SUVs over the years where the drivers of said vehicles have absolutely no consideration for anyone else on the road. They treat it as if they are the only ones there and it is their God-given right to drive wherever and howsoever they pleaseth. I hate to stereotype (since there's always the exception to the rule) but when I'm driving home from work on a two-lane freeway and there are three or four trucks all around me and their all speeding, following ech other and others too closely, changing lanes regularly and just generally driving recklessly, I can't help but make the statement that people who are predisposed to buying these types of vehicles must be assholes, or the vehicles make them that way. It has to be one or the other because the trend is just far too consistent. It stands up to the scientific method.

I know this will probably kill any chances of anyone ever helping me move furniture that won't fit into my wagon, but I just had to let that one go.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

mike

Bad Weather

Frickin' car won't start again today. Couple of days ago it got pretty cold overnight and the car froze. I didn't have it plugged in so when I went to start it there was no joy. I finally ended up getting it boosted and it worked fin for me the rest of the day (although she was a little rough on starting when I was leaving work yesterday).

I made sure I plugged it in last night because I knew it would be cold again and went out to dutifully start it and get it warmed up and ready to take Jen into work and do some errands, and the damn thing won't start again. It's actually 7 degrees warmer than the other night but my freakin' car is still frozen. I'll have to get another boost when my father-in-law swings by later today so I can get my errands done. Until then I guess I'll continue to sort the house and make it somewhat presentable for the appraiser who will also be coming in today. Life is so full of fun things.

Later!

mike

No Control

This is going to be a self-indulgent rant, so you've had your warning if you want to bail now.

Jen has been bugging me to watch some Burn Notice and I, honestly, have just not been in the mood. I love the show to bits and we were watching season three for a while but we got derailed when the second season of True Blood came on HBO and that was 'the show' we watched for the next few months. There are many shows that we like and watch separately when we have the chance (because we are notorious for not agreeing on just about anything) so, when we find a show like Burn Notice, something we both enjoy, we try and hold off and watch it together.

Recently, though, I've been accused of holding the television hostage since I'm not overly interested in watching what she wants to watch right now (meaning BN). This is partially true, but only in the sense that, if I give her any episodes to watch, she will be unable to stop herself until she hits the end and then I either have to catch up, give up, or shut up. I'm sure it's obvious which option she would suggest I take.

Take tonight, for example. I went out with some friends and conceded an episode as a gesture. One episode is not a hard thing to catch up on. Heck, I could watch it when I got home before bed and nobody would know the difference. We could pick it up again together any time. She'd be happy, I'd be happy and there would be happiness all around. However, me being the idiot I am, left her with 3 episodes at her disposal and she watched every damn one of them. I came home and 'walked in' on her watching the last one. "This is one of the best episodes of the series yet," she says to me.

sigh

So, now I'm pissed, she thinks I'm retarded, I'm aware of the level of self-pity but am feeling burned on the 'the show we watch together' factor (something that has happened at least three times in as many years), and now we're not talking to each other.

Another wonderful day in the corps.

We now return you to our regularly scheduled programming.

mike