The Purple Piper Plays His Tune

While I was on hiatus or in Purgatory or or whatever, I didn't write much. However I did still listen to a lot of music, and it helped to do so. The last year and a half or so, when I was on the mend, I was still pretty fucked up. To keep myself from turning into a gibbering blob, I conjured various games and activities. In doing so, I created an illusion of order in what was, really, a very muddled and doubtful time. Along with various other exercises, I adopted this practice of making playlists about once a month. (I had no strict time frame—it just worked out to about 1 per month.)

I kept the lists "short"—around 30-45 minutes—because I lacked an attention span. Let's face it: it's kind of hard to listen to a longer playlist, unless you're road-tripping or something like that. (Which I did, last Summer, and I made a longer list for that outing, and maybe I'll get into it here at some point.) Anyway, there was a time when most really good albums were 30-45 minutes, and they worked just fine. (Something that short is less common, nowadays, especially when so many albums are clogged up with guest appearances, alternate mixes, and bonus tracks.)

Since I used to post a lot of dullsville pontifications on here about this music or that or the other and why it was such hot shit, I figured it might be a good way to get back on the horse to share a couple of my skimpy lists with you. They're short, and I'll try to keep it pithy, like Bill O'Reilly once said. (The ladies said the same thing to him.) It may even be over before I bore you! (If I haven't already!) And if it goes well, maybe I'll post some more!

I should note that I didn't give as much thought to these playlists as I sometimes have in the past. The point, to me, was to mark a moment, and to do so without much self-consciousness. Then I moved onto the next list, and with any kind of luck, maybe a better day. To the extent that I really considered what I was doing here, I made it more about sound and vibe, than idea and theme. Soooooooo…

Ready????? Here goes:

06/20/17:

1) Side B (Dope Song) - Danny Brown - Old: Danny Brown can be viciously funny, but sometimes he's just vicious. This song hits and hits hard, as a crushing bassline collides with a demented midget backing track. His vocals range from panicked to furious, as he spits out anecdotes that are much darker and much more vivid than the average urban hip hop claptrap. It may not be documentary, but it feels like emotional and musical truth.

2) Black Diamond - The Replacements - Let It Be: There is a hilarious anecdote about this song, which you may very well know, involving Gene Simmons walking into a club where the Replacements were covering this Kiss number. They were playing with such sloppy, reckless abandon that he was appalled and stormed out. Not only is this a hell of a lot of unselfconscious (unlike Kiss) fun, it's sort of pleasant to think of that pretentious asshole throwing a fit.

3) Last Call - Elliott Smith - Roman Candle: From Elliott Smith's very first record, which is unlike any of the other albums in the way, it sprawls. It's more of an exploration of what someone can do with a prolonged groove, a sustained atmosphere, and a focused approach to storytelliing. Often the songs do away with verses, choruses and bridges, and instead follow a twisting, hypnotic path.

4) Run to the Hills - Iron Maiden - Number of the Beast: One of the best riffs ever ushers you into this mini-epic morality play. At first blush, this song may sound like hair metal cheese. Really though, all those squealing throwaway acts—from bubble gum like Motley Crue to gas bags like Yngwie Malmsteen—are just parasites. Iron Maiden is above and beyond their progeny. In retrospect, their music can sound like a happy marriage of Sabbath and speed metal, which is a pretty cool sound indeed.

5) 123 - girlpool - Powerplant: An awesome song from an awesome record. This one works off of bittersweet endorphins. It is not be "profound" in some weighty critical sense, but it is one of those experiences that feels very large, when you're in the middle of it. It has the elevated anthemic feel of arena rock, but it manages to stay intimate somehow at the same time. Really addictive stuff.

6) Draag - Brainiac - Smack Baby Bunny: It is now 20 years since the death of Tim Taylor, the lead singer of Brainiac. He, and the band, are missed. The world could use more unique and exciting rock music. All the more reason, I guess, why we may have to hold onto the really weird, really edgy stuff from the past. This one skitters about, unleashing little manic rock explosions and skittering electronics. It's from the first Brainiac record, when they were just starting to emerge from a 90s rock chrysalis to become something stranger.

7) The Court of the Crimson King - In the Court of the Crimson King: Hahaha. Oh my. Did someone just belch? Oh wait, that was just King Crimson, in their grand, original form, cutting loose on the prog-rock shot heard…around the headphones? What other song noodles through jazz, rock, and dinner theater in such a glorious, bombastic way? The ambition here is towering! The song teeters, but doesn't quite fall. (Depending on your taste.) Amazing.

8) The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton - Mountain Goats - All Hail West Texas: There's somehing really… sublime?… about hearing John Darnielle intone "Hail Satan!" in his characteristic adenoidal way. Then there are the familiar folksy chords banging out behid this whistful but angry tale of metal, friendship and the tyranny of adults over the young. It's funny, but it doesn't trivialize its subject matter. 

9) A Spoonful of Blues - Charley Patton - Charley Patton, Volume 1: Listening to delta blues can be an exercise in frustration, if you try to understand the lyrics. The recordings are low quality, and the vocals are drawled in a nearly archaic dialect—all of which is too bad, because the stories and emotions that you find in these songs are just as powerful as they were in their day. (I suspect. My time machine's busted, so I can't verify.) With Charley Patton, you almost forget that you're missing out, because the sounds themselves are so compelling. Here, the harmony between the riff and the vocal is so off the wall, but so memorable that I can't get them out of my head half the time.

10) Blue Suede - Vince Staples - Hell can Wait: It isn't enough that Vince Staples writes some very powerful lyrics and delivers them with a level of intensity you rarely hear elsewhere. (The dude sounds almost laid back, at times, but he turns on a dime and spits in your face.) He also assembles some of the most unique and hard hitting backing tracks out there. The songs are catchy, generally, but they serve up a ferocious sound that you will not find anywhere else.

So that's it for now… I've been cranking these lists out about once a month—though I don't keep track—so likely I'll have another one up here soon. (If I get around to writing about it.) Hurrah!

Chips & Dips, Part 3 in 3D

(URGENT!!! PLEASE SEE INTRODUCTORY NOTE FROM "CHIPS & DIPS, PART 1" FOR ESSENTIAL CONTEXT AND DISCLAIMERS!!!)



Where were we? Oh yeah…

So, hey! This implant stuff all worked pretty well for Pa Patrick, right? He may've lost a non-vegetative daughter, but he gained a subhuman race car driver! Maybe nothing's perfect, in nature, but Danica is perfectly good unnaturally gifted hot shot! 

Still, not everything is so great in the implant biz, because meanwhile back in Hollywood, where all the really important stuff happens, my sources tell me that Kari is feeling sort of insecure and blue about having regular-sized jugs again. Ever since that mishap with her own implants, life just doesn’t have that zing, so she’s decided to super-size again. The girl’s not getting any younger, and the boobs aren’t getting any more buoyant. 

(Don’t think yourself any better. Your tits are going to sag too. Your pubes are gonna grey up and dry out till they’re like the furry stuff on a used-up dish sponge. Your nuts are gonna dangle around your knees, but they’ll be virtually useless, because even if you still have your prostate gland, and are therefore able to splurt out a weak, geriatric squab of off-white slime, you won’t be able to get it up to do so with anyone else. So when you mock Kari, obviously, you mock yourself.) 

But here's where things take a turn for the, um, best? Because Kari's new implants don't just give her better boobs. They have an unforeseen and really cool side effect! 

Remember back there when we were talking about how Kari got implants and became a hot shot jet pilot? Well, fake-Kari did anyway. Real-Kari just went scampering off to some other dimension with the rest of the Sliders. And real-real-Kari got implants also! And they made her into a hotshot actress! Aaaannnddd… and this part's really going to blow your mind! (If you haven't already blown your head off while reading this.) Real-real Kari's new implants have also made her into a hotshot fighter pilot—just like fake-Kari! See, according to the Transitive Property of Acting, fake-Kari and real-real-Kari cancel out real-Kari… and well… 

Consider the equation below:



Real-Kari minus Implants [because they blew up] = Fake-Kari ^ Real-Real-Kari

______________________________________________________

Real-Kari + Implants




=Fake-Real-Kari

Let's just cll this new entity "fer-real-Kari." Because she's for real. And she's a for real hot shot! 

I refer any of you who doubt my math to Aristotle's Poetics. And, lucky us, Aristotle was all about the philosophy as well! So if we're wondering what all this crap about modifying bodies really means—beyond arithmetical and structural nuts and bolts—all we have to do is apply Aristotelian logic to figure it out. 

So now Kari's got implants again, and she's a hot shot pilot. But so is Danica. So where does that leave us? What do you do when you have two hot shots with implants??? 

That's right! Wacky Races! Wow, Thanks, Aristotle! It's so obvious! An elegant solution…what streamlined logic! Beauty through simplicity. 

Except nothing about building or modifying people is ever simple. And wacky races are even worse! It's their convoluted nature that makes them so entertaining. (Look at how many of them there are on TV these days!) The goals and the format are always somewhat cloudy—just like in real life—all you can really do is hold on with both hands and see where the race takes you! 

Um hmm. So let's see…Oh yes! Hear that VROOMING? That's good ol' Danica making her approach in a souped-up soapbox sedan! Just when your ears have recovered from that unholy racket, window glass starts breaking all around you..a screaming comes across the sky. It has happened before, but it was never so big a surprise as it is to see ol' Kari's jet coming in for a three point landing at 40gs! Ouch! 

Anyway, so both our girls pull up to the starting line in their respective rides. And from their respective driver's seats, they stare at each other in what appears to be a confrontational way—until you notice that Danica is really just glassy-eyed and drooling into her vinyl racing outfit. So sitting way up there in her cockpit, Kari has to lean way down to point forward, dramatically, through the windshield to indicate that it's on. Danica's head just kind of lolls to one side, as though her neck were broken. (And it may well be. Cranial implants are trickier than you might think—at least if you want to patch them into the neural system of someone's body, with its spinal column and other yicky stuff.) 

 

Then some chick in a vinyl cop outfit waves an MIT flag, and the girls start moving! Except but for that they don't! Because Pa Patrick runs out into the dust, waving his arms, to make an instant replay challenge! 

Fat boy refs in black muumuus trundle out, strap on elaborate headsets, cast bird entrails, wait for verdict from NYC. Crowd snoozes. Danica drools more. Kari adjusts makeup and bosoms. Eventually, one of the refs decisively pumps a fist—as tho he were, well, fisting the North Star. He's saying that there's a technical foul on the entire endeavor. Everyone involved has to stop and consider what he might mean…Technical foul on life? Reality? The race? All are reasonable objections, but there's this pesky victory thing to be determined. 

Fat ref—who just happens to be Country Joe West—which means if you're a baseball fan, you need to either get out yr fiddle and start sawing, or get out yr squirrel-shooter and start aiming, depending on yr disposition and denomination and whatnot…Well, that be-joweled motherfucker informs all the squares that there is, indeed, a foul afoot. Seems two requisite vehicles are in play—but there's a bitchy objection at work—the one that Dan's Da hath made: The particular vehicles here aren't requisite to the same sport! 

You big sillies! A race car can't run up against a jet plane! What kind of contest would that be? However badass Danica is—and she is A-1 badass—she's going to come up short! And it won't even be her fault. It'll be the fault of corruption. Unless Country Joe West has something to say about it—and he does, albeit as presented around a mouthful of wattles! 

Fowl! He cries, his snood standing at attention… And Danica and Kari retreat to neutral corners to do some Xtreme vetting of another type of vehicle… 

(Note: "In anatomical terms, the snood is an erectile, fleshy protuberance on the forehead of turkeys. Most of the time when the turkey is in a relaxed state, the snood is pale and 2-3 cm long. However, when the male begins strutting—the courtship display—the snood engorges with blood, becomes redder and elongates several centimeters, hanging well below the beak…" As per Wikipedia.) 

So. The umps come up with the certifiably brilliant idea that if neither plane nor car is equivocal—vis-a-vis vehicular hilarity—then an intermediary medium will have to be arrived upon, which is, obviously, jet skis! Yep! If you're a hot shot pilot or driver or whatever, why not slide your fine ass over into the Posture-Pedic driver's seat of a hardcore jet ski? I mean, for purposes of leveling the playing field and whatnot? 

So. Like. Danica and Kari both scamper over to a couple of state-of-the-art water sport rides. Hop in, turn ignition, motor rumbles! Off they go! 

The crowd roars! It is mostly made up of middle aged men in rain coats, whose hands are conspicuously concealed somewhere inside. They leer at Kari and Danica, who can't see them anyway as they go streaking by! 

The race is so intense that they pass the finish line, neck and neck, without even seeing it! Their wakes trail behind them like aquatic contrails, off away from spectators and commentator, and through the interconnected network of our great nation's lakes and rivers. 

Pretty soon, they're whipping across the cold waters of Lake Superior, right over the sunken remains of the Edmund Fitzgerald, (for all you Harry Chapin fans out there—god help you). They hit the Soo Lochs pulling about 600 knots, shifting left and right as they fight both gravity and wind. In other words, they struggle with nature itself! To fall off your ski here, while moving this fast would be like hitting the pavement after falling from a hurtling hover-car. However pneumatic your body may be, there'd only be so much bouncing and padding to protect you from pancakery. Or worse—just flying off your ride and finding yourself with an internal orifice injury. 

(Note: The most traumatic internal orifice injury "occurs when a female rider falls off the back of [a jet ski] and into the path of the craft's high-pressure water jet. The jet thrust is powerful enough to push water into the rider's orifices, which can result in severe internal injuries to the rider's vagina, rectum or anus, and possibly death…" As per Wikipedia.) 

But not our girls, no! Remember that they're real hot shots, so it shouldn't surprise you one bit to find them whipping right into Lake Fenton, Michigan and hurtling toward the shoreline. The only way for them to avoid an unimaginable catastrophe—one featuring, say, property damage, decapitations of charming local families, and a final spectacular fireball…BWOOM!… (This is starting to sound sort of cool. I almost wish they would crash…) The only way to avoid such a nightmare, is for both ladies to show off their chops! 

Lake Fenton is small, and the skis are moving very, very fast, so about all Kari and Danica can do is move into a circular formation, right in the middle of the lake. They spin round one another, trying to slow their rides down without colliding. Waves spring up around them, pushing pontoon boats away like the great hand of Neptune himself! But here's the thing: Kari and Danica have been moving at such an outré clip that even as the motors throttle down, centrifugal force picks them up and carries them in a mighty waterspout, first up into the sky and then down, whirlpooling, into the depths of Lake Fenton! 

And so they sink spectacularly. But in doing so, they don't find death…They find transformation… Danica's shiny eyes—like a kid's prize marbles—find Kari's intense gaze. (No, you perv…they are not going to lez out!) The tremulous limits of terror recede, like the surface of the water above. Both women feel a strange pull, leading them, without fear, deeper into the unknown depths of the lake. 

 

Yes, without fear, but instead with a strange giddiness. They find indescribable wonders stretching out in front of them, as they begin to swim, without need of air. They move down, away from the drunken weekend speedboat antics above, then out, like salmon to the sea. Deeper, through stygian chasms to the alien architecture of sunken Rl'eyh, where they will shed implants and human skin. Glorious and ageless now, they shall live amidst the ancient splendor of the Deep Ones forever. Ia! Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'leyh wgah'nagl fhtagn! 

Or something. 

I can't tell you what'll happen to Kari or Danica—or to their implants, really. And I can't tell you if it's better to achieve apotheosis through technology or genetic/occult sidestepping. I can't tell you what's monstrous or marvelous (or both at the same time). As a matter of fact, I can't tell you much at all. You probably should ignore pretty much everything I say, except this: chicks and speed don't mix, and that is so hot.