Category: music

dj got us

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I was thinking about the Super Bowl this morning. Not the whole Taylor/Kelce/who-gives-a-shit, but Usher.

The only song, in my opinion, worth being on that show, in fact, the one that probably could have saved that mostly homogenous and unknown set would have been DJ Got Us Falling In Love.

It would have sent the subliminal into the crowd, and maybe actually made that connection, instead of having most people thinking, “I’ve never heard this one” and wondering where the good songs are.

Personally, it’s the only song of Usher’s worth a shit, in my world, and one of his biggest, and he just skipped it.

I guess weird and dumb decisions always make me wonder. It’s one thing if you’re going for something different and you want to break out of a stereotype, but this is a pop star at the Superbowl.

Play your hits, dummy.

Like, if you want to get insanely arty or pretentious about it, then you need to transcend, like Cobain on MTV Unplugged or Lou Reed anything.

But a pop star? At the Superbowl?

Play your hits, dummy.

Target: 500 words
Written: 878 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell, Tucker Max (I know, I know)
Comics: East Of West 9-12
Music: Knives Out, Radiohead

rats, kenneth

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I started off today thinking things were going to be bad. I was distracted, couldn’t focus, following rabbit trails.

That bass started in Rats and suddenly, I was deep in. Pearl Jam is my jam (well, one of them), and that early work?

Shit. Follow it with a little R.E.M. and damn, son, things are looking up.

Except.

They didn’t.

Stuck drain, VPN outages, and a sinking sense of being on the way to being completely fucked… well, that’s my jam, apparently.

Seriously. Maybe fuck today?

Target: 400 words
Written: 280 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Welcome To Night Vale, those guys
Comics: East Of West 1-4
Music: Kiss Essentials, Kiss (judge not, sometimes, you just gotta eat some popcorn, plus God Gave Rock 'N' Roll To You is straight Tao)

stuff from before

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I’ve been reading a lot of stuff I’ve read before. And listening to stuff I’ve heard before.

Some of it is like a warm hug, a familiar reminder, a keyhole into a presence I once had, discovering the music all over again.

Some is it is tedious and hasn’t aged well.

Once again, I find myself thinking of a way back – to a feeling I used to have, or a way forward from a feeling I didn’t want.

Nostalgia doesn’t suit us; it can be revealing. I’m yet to be certain that’s a bad thing, or a good one.

All I know is we want what we can’t have, we want what we used to have, and we want everything else instead.

Target: 200 words
Written: 783 words, short story: Get Back Again

Read: Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Richard Bach (starts well, turns into generic mystical bullshit)
Comics: Fanboys Vs. Zombies 5-8
Music: Yer Favourites, Tragically Hip (gave me my #VeryCanadianMoment as I slid around in the snow on the way to my free health care with Bobcaygeon and Nautical Disaster blasting over the speakers.  If I'd been apologizing to someone with a hockey bag and a two-four in the back, I'd have broken the Canadian stereotype meter permanently.  Before you ask, I was already wearing a toque).

christmas parties after the fact

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Last night, it was time for my yearly dose of post traumatic stress. My wife and daughter still work at the place that nearly put me under, and so, once a year, we trudge out to their Christmas party, always held after Christmas, because the owners are cheap.

Every year, it is the same; there’s a sense of tension, a fear of being pulled back in, a desire to get the fuck away. It’s so synchronous with the short story I’m working on (based on a Tragically Hip song call Get Back Again), about being unable to get past the past, and unable to let things go, that I couldn’t help but laugh (and consider weeping).

I can’t wait until they are retired or have new jobs, so I never have to think about that fucking place again.

I never want to get back anywhere near it.

Target: 200 words
Written: 300 words, short story: Get Back Again

Read: The Power Of Less, Leo Babauta
Comics: The Legend Of Luther Strode 3-6
Music: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Wilco

disappointment

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Life’s full of them.

See what I did there?

Target: 200 words
Written: 2190 words, comic: Romance #1

Read: Get It Done When You're Depressed, Julie Fast
Comics: Mind The Gap 9-12
Music: Quadrophenia (Soundtrack), The Who ("is it me, for a moment?")

for a moment…

for a moment…

for a moment…