i'm moving:

LONG LIVE THE EPHEMERAL

bye!

convoluted bitching on why i hate sports

aside from a few painful minutes of witnessing the remaining members of my once favorite band embarrass themselves in front of millions of people and a couple quick glances at the family room TV while walking to and from the bathroom and kitchen, i didn't watch any of the Super Bowl. i didn't care. i derive absolutely no pleasure from watching grown men in grotesque costumes dash around a field and crash into one another in pursuit of a unassuming leather ellipsoid. i'm being [obnoxiously] facetious, but i genuinely just don't get it. and it's not only professional football, it's the culture surrounding all competitive sports from Little League on up.

that's not to say i dislike athleticism, or even the idea of sports in general. when it's on the level of a bunch of neighborhood kids playing field baseball, a couple friends engaging in a game of PIG, or even intramural sports at a school or business, i think sports can be a great thing. like any other game - video, card, board - the function of sports at this level is to foster camaraderie; it's all about connection and the satisfaction derived from working with other people towards a common goal. and good-natured competition can be rewarding, on both a personal and social level. of course, there's the health aspect as well, playing a sport is an excellent way to stay in shape [or so i'm told]. it's when sports go beyond an excuse for a group of people to get together and have fun/exercise that they become problematic for me:

- education:

it is inherently contrary to the goal, function, and purpose of education for a school - whether it be a small high school or an enormous public university - to slavishly devote so much time, effort, and monetary resources to the maintenance and promotion of athletic programs. and while this attitude may stem from my personal experiences in high school - i consistently felt that my GRAND ACCOMPLISHMENTS as a scholar and as a member of academic teams were undervalued by the faculty and completely overshadowed by the achievements of the star school athletes - it goes beyond petty envy. the administration at my school had a "sports director" position that paid well above and beyond a tenured teacher's salary; this is analogous to university-level coaches being among the highest-paid public servants in their respective states. considering how difficult it is for teachers to make a decent living and how entry-level positions at colleges are dwindling fast, this seems like a gratuitous and baffling waste of resources. then there's the type of people who get hired as coaches, and, by extension, P.E. and health teachers. they usually have no proper educational training and no real commitment to or interest in academics. my high school's baseball coach was a truly despicable human being - and i can say that about only a small handful of people i've known in my life - who was allowed to teach a health class where he would make such claims as "women who wear revealing clothing are asking to get raped." no wonder so many girls in my class were mothers or impregnated by the time of graduation; sex education should not be ordained by such an incompetent and destructive individual. yet, he was allowed to keep his job, presumably because he brought in so many victories on the baseball diamond. [i know that was tangential, but i had to get it out!] proclaiming that athletic programs bring in money for the school reeks of stat-juking bullshit. if sporting events do turn a profit - and i'm sure they do at a college level more so than at a high school level - how much of that money is pumped back into the program? maintenance of facilities and equipment is dauntingly expensive [it was always disheartening to hear that IU spent thousands and thousands of dolla dolla bills for a new basketball stadium or whatever]. it becomes another snake-eating-itself self-perpetuating cycle. school-sponsored athletics are a blight on public resources and anathema to education.

- social value:

1. gender issues: i don't want to delve too much into gender studies, but sports encourage a culture based on antiquated heteronormative and patriarchal social values. rabble-rouser Andrea James' provocative blog entry on this subject had me, a godless constructivist, feeling like a damn reactionary, but it's rather obvious that the stereotypes and gender divides associated with sports are woefully outdated. speaking from my own experience, it's obnoxious that as a dude, heteronormative values dictate that i should actively give a fuck about Peyton Manning or Ron Artest or whoever and that NOT caring signifies wimpiness, and by implied extension, femininity.

2. faux-regionalism and rivalry: i think regionalism is awesome in general, especially in a cultural sense, and i unequivocally support any attempt to preserve it. however, the "regionalism" associated with sports culture - whether it be rivalries amongst teams, supporting the "home team," or a arena or stadium becoming an integral part of a city's image - is superficial at best. to me, regional culture is based on food, language, art, music - idiosyncratic, organically developed elements that are singular to that specific city or community. from the very little i know of the history of professional sports, before the establishment of national leagues and codification of rules and regulations associated with them, each city had its own unique way of playing. professional sports are an extension of the monoculture that developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

[HISTORY DEGREE TANGENT] shifts in labor [increased wages and a shorter workday led to more leisure time], the growth of the middle class, and rapid changes in technology [the telegraph and, later, the telephone] and transportation [railroads and the automobile] fostered the development of a consumerist monoculture and the industries associated with it, including professional athletics.

monoculture isn't always a terrible thing, but it's infuriating when misconstrued as regionalism. so when you go "root root root for the home team," you aren't supporting the local culture of your city or community, you're supporting a national multi-billion industry developed a little over a hundred years ago to suck up your new found wealth and leisure time, you dirty, stupid proletariat.

and rivalries between college teams are just dumb and obnoxious, sorry.

3. the spectacle of public violence: there's a lot of theory out there stating that professional sports [and violent films, viral videos, etc.] occupy the primal need/desire in the popular consciousness for ritualized, public violence. thus, it replaces human sacrifice, public executions, blood sport, gladiatorial battle, and other such lovely endeavors. this thought process assumes a very cynical, Hobbesian view of human nature, and who knows, it may be somewhat correct. and if it is, how fucking sad is it that there's still a need for this type of spectacle. look at European soccer riots or the drunk, belligerent dad getting into fights at Little League games. are people really inherently violent, irrational, stupid beings?

i know i'm firing on all cylinders here and that i'm making some rather wild, spurious arguments, so i'll end things with a little list of why part of me CAN see the appeal of competitive sports:

1. aesthetics of shape and movement: artists have known it for millennia; the human form is beautiful. yeah, bodybuilders are nasty because they don't look natural, but a well-sculpted figure is undeniably aesthetically pleasing. the body in movement is even more so. this is the appeal of a sport like boxing for me, which i can easily associate with ballet and dance [Raging Bull captures this very well]. plus, it's really fucking cool to see a person move at seemingly impossible speeds [Micheal Phelps at the Olympics, for example]. even football can be engaging on this level. an acquaintance of mine made an incredible experimental short film [that i wish i could find on the internet] based entirely on found footage of OJ Simpson making touchdowns. it was hypnotically beautiful and absolutely compelling.

2. cults of personality and the romance: some athletes are undeniably badass. Muhammad Ali is the quintessential example, but i could name several others from every sport. and some sports, baseball in particular, have a certain romantic appeal based on folkloric legends and popular myth. in some senses, Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, and even someone like Michael Jordan are just as integral to the American cultural heritage as Robert Johnson or Mark Twain or John Ford or any creator/chronicler/exemplar of the American experience.

3. camaraderie: i know i was kind of denouncing monoculture earlier, but i can certainly recognize its appeal. it plays into a fundamental desire to be a part of something bigger and grander than yourself. and when you're at a bar with your buddies downing cheap beer while cheering on your favorite team on the big screen TV, you're connecting to an intangible sentiment that unites you with hundreds, thousands, or millions of other people. it would take a real asshole to find fault in that.

now i'm not a neurotic or my business spasmodic, and my only excuse is: everything comes from chaos

71.

colossal youth
young marble giants [rough trade, 1980]

if punk was a reaction to the gaudy ostentation of popular music in the 1970s - the soppy hoariness of AM radio, the overwrought bombast of the stadium, and the coked-out decadent sheen of the discotheque - this record may be the purest example of the counter-mainstream D.I.Y. approach punk suggested. recorded cheaply, all first takes and few overdubs, and released on a then-unknown independent label, Colossal Youth opts for stark minimalism over grandiosity, reflective contemplation over brash confrontation. this is unmistakably a catchy, accessible pop record, yet its tenor is foreign, unfamiliar, and defiantly singular. whereas points of reference Suicide and Silver Apples were noisy, if not hostile, Young Marble Giants are somber, quiet, and as austere as an abandoned bunker or a desolate provincial cemetery. even within the context of an era that abounded in creativity, Colossal Youth is genuinely sui generis. the structural components are consistent throughout the record: the jaunty, punctured throb of a bass, the ghostly lub-dub of a primitive drum machine, the twang and scratch of a Rickenbacker, the carnivalesque drone of a homemade synthesizer, and the deadpan near-monotone drawl of vocalist Alison Statton. just as important are the gaps, the spaces, the reverberations; Young Marble Giants aren't hoarders of sounds and Colossal Youth is as uncluttered as an obsessive compulsive's desktop, creating a near-claustrophobic tone of immediacy. the record has many revelatory moments, from the corroding calliope swirl of "the man amplifier" and the slasher film build-up of "n.i.t.a." to the sardonic, ennui-ridden bourgeois critique of "eating noddemix" and the aching poignancy of "salad days." however, the highlight - and the most pristine distillation of the record's minimalistic aesthetic - is opener "searching for mr. right," which contains Statton's most elegiac vocal melody. though it may bear little sonic similarity to the majority of British punk, Colossal Youth is a quintessential illustration of the true mission of the movement: allowing disaffected, disillusioned youths and weirdos across the nation the opportunity to create distinctive, engaging, gorgeous music.

burn out, rather than fade away moment: aside from a collection of early singles, and an EP released before their disbandment, Colossal Youth is the only Young Marble Giants record. this, of course, adds to its mystique. incidentally, it was one of Kurt Cobain's favorites and Nirvana planned to cover "credit in the straight world;" Hole ended up doing so, rather horribly, on Live Through This.

give me a Leonard Cohen afterworld, so i can sigh eternally

72.





in utero
nirvana [dgc, 1993]

this is the sound of mental collapse and caged dog desperation; after the unbridled success of Nevermind, the boomer critical establishment - and millions of adoring fans - foisted the world onto Kurt Cobain's back. he was the Savior, the Voice, the Icon, the counter Jon Bon Jovi and Nirvana was the ferociously "authenic" antidote to the bloated excesses of hair metal, obliterating crass, teased-hair insincerity with righteous punk indignation. In Utero is the intrepid response to all the unwanted adulation, noisily confrontational and as caustic as a beaker of hydrochloric acid funneled down the gullet. the Freudian fury of rumbling opener "serve the servants" scorches the earth for the bulldozing "scentless apprentice" where Cobain massacres his throat over blitzkrieg guitar and Dave Grohl's panzer drums. the "loud-soft" dynamics of "heart-shaped box" and the sly allusion to "smells like teen spirit" on "rape me" acknowledge Nirvana's past before staggering off into more ominous territory, while Cobain self-deprecatingly equates his mental state to that of a deranged film starlet on "frances farmer will have her revenge on seattle." the eye of the hurricane quiet of the precocious "dumb" and the bittersweet "pennyroyal tea" counteract the sonic assault of the ironically titled "radio friendly unit shifter" and the unapologetic squall of "tourette's." "milk it" is the record's highpoint; a maelstrom of grotesque lyrics, schizophrenic guitar, mastodon-sized drums, and a creeping sense of impending doom. in the wake of Cobain's suicide, closer "all apologies" has become an elegy, and indeed the closing lyrical round of "all in all is all we are" [perhaps appropriately misconstrued as "all alone is all we are"] achieves a wistful aura of corporeal finality. this is an idiosyncratic record, off-putting and charming, defiant and droll, and an effective demonstration of why Nirvana is such a universally beloved band, regardless of critical hyperbole and misapplication.

teenage angst has paid off well, now i'm bored and old momenet: hi, yeah, i'm back. due to a computer death, multiple distractions, and my inability to complete any list-based project i start, i know it's been awhile [cue Staind song]. also, i was reluctant to write this entry. it's difficult to approach a group as "universally beloved" as Nirvana, and i didn't want to fall too much into the pitfall of focusing extensively on Cobain's death. it probably shouldn't have taken me three months to get around to it, but, oh well. i AM going to finish this project. even it takes years, damnit.

i'm a thief and i dig it! i'm on a beef, i'm gonna rig it! i'm a thief and i dig it!

73.





the band
the band [capitol, 1969]

in apposite response to the wayward discord and unchecked chaos of the 'Nam era, maple-slurpin' Canadian Robbie Robertson and his Band of merry musicians scour America's past for inspiration, seeking the source of the turbulence; the origin of the discontent; the genesis of a musical heritage that stretches back to the mountains and the fields, parlors and playhouses; the roots. this is a Bande à part backstroking against mainstream currents, a group of self-aware hipsters shucking off flower-power head-trips for headlong excursions into the dark recesses of history; this self-titled record captures them at the pinnacle of their prowess. "across the great divide" is a woozy, boozy morning-after lover's lament fueled by Levon Helm's street-corner stomp, while Rick Danko's hell-raising fiddle on "rag mama rag" threatens to set the hay on fire during a barn dance. Garth Hudson's lantern-in-the-distance Clara Barton organ hovers over the opium-addled narrator on "when you awake," while Richard Manuel's barrelhouse piano gets kicked out of the saloon on "look out cleveland." with Manuel's distraught quiver and downcast, brokenhearted lyrics, "whispering pines" is the record's emotional zenith, branching out from the rollicking, drunken ruckus of "up on cripple creek," on which Hudson's Clavinette filters through a wah-pedal for that funky bayou croak later copped by Stevie Wonder. though the old folks' home creak of "rockin' chair" comes across as patronizing, the Band's obsession with the arcane is justified by the Dust Bowl fury of "king harvest (has surely come)" and the mournful Confederate elegy of "the night they drove old dixie down," which may be the fullest realization of their sepia-toned modus operandi. with shrugged-off, nonchalant virtuosity and expertly-forged, timeless songs that would make Stephen Foster blush, The Band excavates the ghosts of the past to critique the present, setting a precedent for the disillusioned and disaffected to, for better or worse, look backwards instead of treading forwards.

you talkin' to me? moment: The Last Waltz is known as the best concert film ever for many reasons - Martin Scorsese's direction [and by extension, Thelma Schoonmaker's incomparable editing], a groggy, elusive Dylan, Neil Young with blow stuck in his nostrils - but, i was impressed by just how badass the dudes in the Band dressed and acted. they were unflappable musicians, but they knew how to rock a fedora and three-piece.