This is Short Fiction. Not blog stuff. Read it anyway?

Old Folks' Home

Drew had woken up at 4 p.m. It was his policy to remain permanently unemployed so he could enjoy mornings, mostly by sleeping through them. To compensate for his lack of a paycheck, he had been gradually selling his CDs to local shops. He had started with discs given to him at birthdays and Christmas, but now he had started pawning off albums he actually liked, which was beginning to bother him.
“We have to buy something. The manager's glaring.” Anna, like Drew, did not want to buy anything. The two were sitting with their backs against the front window of CoffeeWorks, their cigarette smoke wafting through the door whenever a customer entered or left. Anna brushed her blond hair out of her face and stole another glance inside the shop. “I think he's coming out here.”
Drew sighed. “Alright. Let's walk.”
They heaved themselves off of the ground. Drew shielded his eyes from the sun and glanced around the plaza. There are very few poems written about how the sun looks setting over a strip mall, and it did nothing for Drew and Anna but shine directly into their eyes over the rooftops. They began walking in no particular direction, habitually heading toward the movie theatre that dominated most of the plaza. Drew turned himself sideways and pressed against the wall as a group of giggling, middle-aged ladies scurried past him into one of the shops. He sighed and turned to Anna.
“When was the last time you really wanted to be here?” he asked, brushing some dirt off of his pant leg.
“Never.”
“No, seriously.”
She really had to think about it. It was so usual for her to be sick of suburbia, to embrace that generational need to get out, she hadn't even considered the reasons why she stuck around. “I guess I just can't picture myself anywhere else,” she admitted.
Anna glanced backward at the highway that bordered the plaza. Beyond it, she could see the Jewish geriatric center, and she knew that beyond that was the driving range. “You know, there's not one like, arcade, or roller skating rink or... Chuck E. Cheese around here. You have to drive half an hour just to get to a Toys R Us.” She pointed at a store across the parking lot from where they were. “Remember when that place was a toy store? 'Family Toy' or something like that. It lasted what, two years? Maybe?”
“I couldn't say.”
“Whatever. Not long. It's a hardware store now. There are pharmacies popping up on every corner. There's not one kid-friendly business in town, but we both grew up here. And we're still here.”
Drew blinked into the setting sun and smiled a bit. “There's something wrong with us.”
Anna looked at the highway again. “I'm just afraid I'm going to become an old woman living in that nursing home. Lungs rife with cancer, living in a constant terror that I'm going to get hit in the head with a golf ball.”
She paused in front of the seafood restaurant to light another cigarette. Drew flicked the butt of his into the parking lot and watched the sparks bounce and disappear on the asphalt before following her example.
“Hey!” someone yelled.
Drew and Anna turned around to face the tiny woman addressing them. She was sitting at a table on the restaurant's patio. She looked about forty, and the features on her small face had all scrunched to the center to reflect her anger at the two smoking teenagers. “Hey, what's wrong with you kids? Don't you know that shit kills? Don't you have to take classes on that or something?”
Drew looked the woman up and down. She was sitting alone, a half-finished plate of salmon in front of her. Her New York Times was open to the crossword, and her wine glass was empty. She was exactly the kind of person he wanted to beat with a shovel every second of his life.
“It's ok,” he said to her, taking a drag and letting the smoke pour out as he talked, “I have Lou Gehrig's disease. My brain's melting. I'm just sort of racing it with emphysema.” He twitched a little bit, for effect. Anna turned around quickly, so the woman wouldn't see her laughing. Drew smiled calmly at the woman, who looked back at him, terrified, and picked her paper back up. “Have a great night!” he called as Anna pulled him away.
They began to cross the parking lot to get to the theatre. When they were halfway across, people began pouring out of the doors. Drew looked at his watch.
“It's six thirty. All the movies are getting out for the seven o'clock shows.” The parking lot filled with people swarming to their cars, battling to get out first. “This is going to get ugly, we should get to the sidewalk.”
As Drew and Anna approached the theatre, they noticed a boy sitting on the curb, slouched against one of the emergency exit doors. He looked asleep, in the kind of position that Drew had assumed only homeless people could manage.
“Drew, that's David,” Anna said tugging on Drew's sleeve. Drew squinted, and realized that she was right. He hadn't seen David since graduation. He was one of the few, along with Drew and Anna, that hadn't gone off to school in the fall, but they had never been close.
“He looks like he needs some help.” The two friends approached their classmate slowly, as if they were trying to sneak up on a deer.
“David.”
The boy looked up slowly, as if tugged by a string. He blinked several times. “Oh wow.”
“David, what are you doing here?” Anna asked.
There was a pause as David assessed his surroundings, seemingly unaware where he had been sitting. He lifted his hand off of the curb, revealing a cigarette butt that had left its mark on his palm. “I just got out of a movie,” he said, shutting his eyes.
“Which one?” Anna inquired. She flashed a concerned look at Drew, who raised his eyebrows and lit another cigarette. David opened his eyes again.
“Can I get one of those?” he asked, motioning lethargically to Drew's mouth.
“Yeah, sure.” Drew shoved his hand into his pocket and produced another cigarette. He held it out for David for a few moments, but when his friend made no move to take it, he slowly put it back in his pocket.
“I don't remember what movie it was,” David said suddenly. “I ate a whole bottle's worth of Robitussin pills before I came here. Me, Matt, some other kids.” His eyes lit up like he had just remembered something, and looked behind him. “I wonder where they went.”
Anna threw her hands up, exasperated. “What the fuck? You're tripping on cough medicine right now? Why didn't you say anything? I thought you had a concussion or something.”
“It didn't seem important. I can't feel my legs”
“Jesus.”
There were words in blue ink scrawled all over David's left wrist, continuing down his arm under his shirt. Drew squinted at it, but couldn't make the words out. “What's all over your arm?”
For a moment, David seemed to not understand the question. He glanced at his arm. “Oh, God. Yeah. I wrote my own obituary. During the movie. I couldn't focus on it. The movie.”
“Can I see it?” David produced his arm for Drew, who rolled up the sleeve and looked. Up and down David's arm were the words “DEAD” and “BORED” in various fonts and sizes. Drew looked closer to see if anything else was written, but it didn't look like it. He turned his head and looked quizzically at David, who had his eyes closed again.
There was a screech. Everyone in the parking lot looked up as a purple pickup truck careened around the corner from behind the movie theatre and slammed to a halt outside of it. There was a man inside, wearing a cap that poorly contained his white hair. He was a large man, more horizontally than vertically, and he was breathing heavily. For a second, there was no noise. No one moved, there were just a hundred pairs of eyes fixed on the truck.
Without warning, the man began laying on his horn, pressing the button for ten seconds at a time. Drew and Anna looked at each other with concern, but neither of them moved. The man began screaming at the people who were slowly walking by him to their cars. His windows were rolled up, and his words were drowned out by his horn blasts, but his mouth was stretched into a wordless, noiseless scream.
“What do you want?” David suddenly exclaimed. “What is it that you want?”
The man opened the truck's door and stumbled out. He leaned up against the bed of the pickup and continued to yell unintelligibly at those who walked by. He was clutching his chest with left hand and reaching out to passersby with his right. He turned and began yelling at a little girl whose mother snatched her away with a scream. Anna took a few steps toward him before Drew put a hand on her shoulder.
The man stumbled again, and slammed his shoulder against his truck. For a moment, he seemed to have regained his balance, but he suddenly stopped yelling. As he collapsed, the ambulance that someone must have called sped into the parking lot, lights flashing.
There was a stillness in the parking lot for just a few seconds. Then, slowly, a crowd began to form around the truck and the ambulance, abuzz with speculation. Anna slid Drew's hand off of her shoulder and ran over to join the crowd as a stretcher was being wheeled out of the ambulance.
Drew blinked. He put out his cigarette.

Girl Rock Can Save the World #3

I don't care what drugs she's most definitely on, I don't care how shitty the video was (it ends with black, then the words "R.I.P. Amy Winehouse's Heart" show up), I don't care how fairly (if entrancingly) terrifying she is, the title track from Amy Winehouse's Back to Black is a legitimately incredible song.

I mean, the chorus? Come on. If you don't get all goosebumpy and wrapped up in shivers, there's something wrong with you.

Oh, and this is to say nothing of the version of her song "You Know I'm No Good" featuring GHOSTFACE.

Lighten the Fuck Up

This is in response to a really, really stupid blog post from The Huffington Post and, to a lesser extent, an intelligent but misguided op-ed from Slate. Both take issue with Judd Apatow's Knocked Up, specifically the treatment of abortion in the film.

I originally wrote this as a comment on The Huffington Post, but I know it will never survive. It'll probably never get approved. Oh well. Here it is for you.

Let's see if you can spot the sarcasm!

"Not only are you about three months too late on this hopelessly unnecessary analysis, (check the Slate.com archives), but you seem to have harnessed powerful psychic abilities that have allowed you to peer deep within the mind of Judd Apatow and discover that he is a soldier for the religious right!

Genius!

"The point is not that abortion (or adoption) would have made for better comedy."

Unfortunately, that IS the point. It wouldn't. Let me run this by you: An overweight, scraggly slacker and a successful, attractive woman have a drunken one-night stand. When she finds out that she's pregnant, she decides to have an abortion. The end!

I don't know about you, but I'm laughing already.

"Having a baby doesn't magically transform your pot habit into a sense of responsibility (or infant-sodomy humorists into good babysitters)."

But, get this, in the MOVIE the CHARACTER decides to take on some RESPONSIBILITY. I know this is a big, bold, new concept for everyone to embrace, but sometimes in FICTION (especially in comedies) people don't always act the way they do in REAL LIFE.

I'll pause for a second to let that sink in. I know we're covering a lot of ground.

Could the movie have addressed abortion on a more serious level? Probably. Was it necessary? No. Does the decision to carry the baby to term mean that evangelical Christians are funneling money to Apatow? I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say "No. That's stupid."

So, please. Please. Laugh once in a while? I guess you haven't seen any actual gross-out comedies to know what one is, but this movie wasn't one. But if you really get all uncomfortable about people making (somewhat explicit) sex jokes, maybe you're the one with the right wing agenda.

I don't think that allegation is any less ridiculous than yours."

LOLapalooza (See What I Did There?)

So, apparently, AT&T sponsored a live webcast of Lollapalooza and censored the lyrics "George Bush, leave this world alone" and "George Bush, find yourself another home" while Pearl Jam was doing a cover of Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall Pt. 2".

Now, the blogs are getting all up in arms about political censorship and whatnot, and that's all well and good. I don't know what kind of dicks you have to be to censor your webcasts, or who they were really afraid of offending. Because, seriously, WHO KNEW that rock bands (especially Pearl Jam) leaned left?

So, sure, we could look at this like it's politically motivated, but we here at Swim Through Frequencies prefer to think that AT&T censored those lyrics because they were really, really lame. Maybe the guys at AT&T are big Pink Floyd fans, and they were just embarrassed by Vedder and Co. ruining a classic song.

Nothing against Pearl Jam, I guess. "Daughter" is a pretty sweet song. It's just that there are reasons why Pink Floyd is considered one of the greatest rock bands of all time, and there are reasons why Pearl Jam isn't.

Although they DO both have stupid names.

Story, Shmory.

Scout's honor: Coheed and Cambria used to be my favorite band. Hell, I'm still an active member of the Coheed and Cambria messageboard, where everyone who still posts there hates on Coheed. It's like a hobby of ours. A reverend recently came out and declared a whole bunch of rappers as misogynists (well, DUH) and I realized that such an issue doesn't often get addressed in rock music. Well, Coheed and Cambria are about to put out a new album, so I thought I'd compile this list of terrible things frontman Claudio Sanchez has said. You know, just for fun.

Top 10 Most Offensive Things Claudio Sanchez Has Ever Said In His Lyrics
This Does Not Count the Time He Called an Audience "A Bunch of Ni****s".

10. When I kill her, I'll have her
Die white girls, die white girls

09. Can your dick support your body weight?

08. So run little children, play
I'll leave the light off to turn your mother on

07. Well you're just as I presumed
A whore in sheep's clothing
Fucking up all I do

06. I deserve a..
A lollipop whore, yeah, lollipop whore
A whore!
(Haha, Oh yeah, Ahhh!!)

05. So cry on bitch,
Why aren't you laughing now?

04. Press the steps I take to cross your door frame if
You decide to answer when my fist rings hello

03. But I'm not ready to fuck her
Fuck her, fuck her, just to fuck her
I just can't think anyways
So give me my pussy you whore

02. That you're a selfish little whore
I'm the selfish little whore
If I had my way I'd crush your face in the door

01. When in doubt, just get down on your knees and suck

Fuck You, Brett Ratner/Thank You, Brett Ratner

Album of the Month: July 2007

Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga

This album of the month thing is getting kind of silly, because by the end of the month everyone already is aware of how great albums like Spoon's Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga are, and they surely don't need me to tell them again. Heck, I'm sure a bunch of people (myself included) were shamelessly pumping Spoon's new jamz a couple months before this album even came out. Spoon has yet to make a bad album. They've mastered their game and they somehow know how to make it interesting and enjoyable every fucking time. They're kings.

So, maybe this is the last Album of the Month feature ever, we'll see. If not, Swim Through Frequencies is more than happy to state the obvious for its own narcissistic pleasure.

Attn: World

We here at Swim Through Frequencies hope we are not the first/only ones to point out that M83's Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts has the best cover art of all time.
This fact is undesputable.

Girl Rock Can Save the World #2

A Short List of Reasons (On a Much Longer List) Of Why St. Vincent's Marry Me Is Great

1) There are some decidedly non-melodic guitar riffs at the end of the first song, “Now Now”, that remind me of similar guitar riffs at the end of Wilco’s “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart”. Reminding me of that song is never, ever a bad thing.
2) The words and the way she starts to deliver the line, “While Jesus is saving, I’m spending all my days in the backgrounds and landscapes and languages of saints,” in the song “Jesus Saves, I Spend” that is (to my ears) a clear homage to the way Patti Smith sings, “Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not mine,” at the beginning of “Gloria”.
3) The refrain of “Now Now” is a group of childlike voices repeating, “You don’t mean that, say you’re sorry,” which are instantly rebuffed by Annie Clark’s deathly serious “I’ll make you sorry.”
4) “Your Lips Are Red” starts off sounding like The Knife and Liars fucking.
5) Her disheveled appearance on the cover does absolutely nothing to prepare you for her cool, refined sound.
6) The entirety of the song “Human Racing” makes me giddy.
7) She has the balls to reference Mad Magazine. (“What, Me Worry?”)
8) Her “Dear John” approach to the title track makes me think (hope) that she’s actually asking me (please?).

ATTN: Blogger

Fuck you.
Your formatting, while seemingly simple and user-friendly on the outside, is secretly a hellish nightmare world where cows eat their still-screaming young and lingering souls pray for a death that will never come.
Here's an idea: Instead of giving me text sizes ranging from "Smallest" to "Largest", why don't you join 1996, where people started giving fonts numbered sizes? Ingenious!
Ooh, and I got one: Why not ditch the (apparently mandatory) feature where every picture I upload must be labeled as either "Small" "Medium" or "Large"? This never works out well for anyone! Pictures always come out stretched or poorly condensed.
All I want is for my posts to look homogenized, be consistent within themselves (for chrissake), and not have to worry that if (heaven forbid!) I need to edit a post, my font will suddenly be Goliath-sized for no good reason.
Fuck you,
Sincerely,
Scott.

Pitchfork Music Festival 2007 Recap

GZA
I was completely OK with GZA wearing his own merchandise. It just felt right. The only problem with his set was that 90% of the crowd was just waiting for Sonic Youth to come on. So, while Jason, a few others, and I were all completely pumped and into it, most of the crowd was dead. They missed out.






















SONIC YOUTH
I wish i could convey how fucking crazy the crowd got when Sonic Youth started, but we decided to get the hell out of there.
















CALIFONE










































BATTLES
Were fucking amazing.



























This is a picture of Tyondai Braxton playing both guitar and keyboard AT THE SAME TIME. The other guitarist could do this too. It makes my brain hurt.

IRON AND WINE
Covering Radiohead's "No Surprises"



























CLIPSE
Easily the best show of the day and, for me, the entire festival.





















































The Menomena, Jamie Lidell, and Cool Kids pictures are all kind of lame, but each of them put on a really good show.

CADENCE WEAPON
What a character. He covered Weezer's "Pink Triangle" as a finale (Try to imagine that. You can't.) and kept dissing Fuze's Water Plus ("It's got what plants crave!"). Besides that, though, his DJ was incredible even though he looked like a rapist, and Cadence is one hell of a rapper.






























I am so proud of myself for that.

OF MONTREAL
They were pretty decent, but I don't regret missing most of their set for Cadence Weapon.
















The crowd was obviously super into them, though.

THE NEW PORNOGRAPHERS
Even though both Dan Bejar and Neko Case were missing (bringing up the completely fair arguement of "Can you really call this group The New Pornographers, then?), The New Pornos put on a really good show. I think my dancing was scaring the middle-aged couple who were doing bowl hits during the set.
















All in all, a great time was had.

A Change of Pace

I’ll take a break from music for a little while to discuss Vanity Fair’s list of The Top 10 Funniest Simpsons Episodes. The list is not terrible, with only one obvious error but a few glaring omissions. I don’t know how they include an episode that even THEY admit “loses some steam” in the “final act” when there are so many perfect Simpsons episodes that don’t have that problem.

I consider myself something of a Simpsons aficionado, so I offer up my own:

Top 10 Funniest Simpsons Episodes Ever

10. Homer at the Bat

Mister Burns, determined to win a company softball game against his rival, Aristotle Amadopolous of the Shelbyville plant, hires an all-star team of baseball players to ‘work’ at the plant. Eight out of the nine of them suffer wacky ailments and Darryl Strawberry and Homer are forced to win the game.

Great Moments: Third baseman Wade Boggs misses the game after being slugged by Barney during a heated argument about the better British Prime Minister: Lord Palmerston or Pitt the elder. The best part of this argument is the utter lack of context provided for it.

09. Two Bad Neighbors

George H.W. Bush moves into a mansion on Evergreen Terrace that has never been seen before nor again. Homer and Bart develop an intense dislike for the former president, and the three prank each other back and forth until the Bushes leave town.

Great Moments: Gerald Ford moves in to the house immediately after the Bushes leave. His exchange with Homer (“Do you like football?” “Yes.” “Do you like beer?” “Yes!”) is one of the funniest in the show. Also, George Bush says scores of things that rank as classic Simpsons quotes, including, but not limited to, “I’ll ruin you like a Japanese banquet! And “If they think George Bush won’t go into the sewer, they don’t know George Bush.”

08. Bart of Darkness

A spot-on parody of Hitchcock’s Rear Window, Bart breaks his leg and spies on Flanders, who he thinks killed Maude. The Simpsons install a pool, which makes Lisa temporarily popular.

Great Moments: Bart dials 911 and reaches the Police Department equivalent of Moviefone. After the pre-recorded operator asks him to type in the code that corresponds to the crime being committed, a frustrated Bart randomly hits numbers. The voice on the other line says, “You have selected Regicide. If you know the name of the king or queen being murdered, press 1.” Bart hangs up.

07. Homie the Clown

Krusty is going out of business, so he opens up a bunch of Krusty Klown Kolleges. Homer attends one and starts posing as the real Krusty at occasions that Krusty feels are beneath him. He is mistaken for the real Krusty by the mob, who keeps trying to kill him.

Great Moments: Krusty bets huge on the Washington Generals, a basketball team playing against the Harlem Globetrotters (“I thought they were due!”). He yells at the TV, “He’s spinning the ball on his finger! Just take it!”

Also, when Homer is posing as Krusty to buy a new car, the mob begins sniping at him. They miss repeatedly, hitting the car Homer’s looking at. When Homer asks what the holes are for, the salesman says, “Those are speed holes. They make the car go faster.” When the mob shoots the car again, the salesman says, “You know what I think? I think you should buy this car.”

06. Homer the Great

Homer gains admittance to the secret, ancient society of Stonecutters, led by Number One (voiced by the incomparable Patrick Stewart). After disgracing himself, he is discovered to be The Chosen One, and is immediately appointed to lead the society. Eventually, the society gets fed up, disbands and changes their name to “The Ancient Mystic Society of No Homers”

Great Moments: To cheer Homer up about losing his followers, Marge tells him that he’s already a member of The Simpson Family. She says it’s “A very exclusive club” with only five members, and that only two of those members have “special rings.” At that, both Bart and Lisa say, “Yeah!” raise their hands, Wonder-Twins style, displaying big plastic rings that make whistling noises.

05. A Streetcar Named Marge

Marge, looking for some excitement in her life, auditions for the musical version of A Streetcar Named Desire, called Oh! Streetcar! The musical destroys the meaning of the original play in traditional Simpsons parody glory. Homer learns a valuable lesson about cherishing his wife.

Great Moments: In a parody of The Birds, Homer, Bart, and Lisa go to pick up Maggie from the Ayn Rand School for Tots. Maggie had recently led a revolt in the nursery, which ended with all the babies retrieving their confiscated pacifiers. When Homer and the kids show up, hundreds of babies are perched around the room, the collective sound of their pacifier-sucking echoing through the school. Homer tiptoes through the kids, picks up Maggie, and leaves. Once out side he shudders and says, with terror in his voice, “Babies.”

04. Marge vs. The Monorail

A Simpsons classic. Burns is fined $3 million for dumping nuclear waste, and the town tries to decide what to do with it. Phil Hartman (the show lacks something integral without him, he was a genius) voices Lyle Lanley, a conman who sells the town a monorail. Marge opposes the idea, and rightfully so: the entire thing goes to hell. Eventually, Homer, who took a job as a monorail operator, saves the day.

Great Moments: Leonard Nimoy is chosen as the celebrity to ride the monorail on its maiden voyage. At the end of the episode, after Homer saves everyone, Nimoy says to no one in particular, “My job here is done.” Barney replies, “What do you mean? You didn’t do anything.” Nimoy simply chuckles and says, “Didn’t I?” before being beamed up.

03. Homer vs. The 18^th Amendment

After Bart accidentally gets drunk in public and caught on camera, a group of angry mothers demand prohibition for the town. An old, never enforced, prohibition law is found on the books, and the town’s alcohol is disposed of. Rex Banner, an Elliot Ness parody, replaces Chief Wiggum and Homer begins bootlegging liquor.

Great Moments: Homer and Bart leave the house to deliver the liquor to Moe’s. On his way out, Homer yells, “We’re going out, Marge! If we don’t come back, avenge our deaths!” to which Marge simply replies, “Ok!”

Moe disguises his bar as a pet store. When the police bust through the door, everyone hides their beers behind their backs. Suspicious, Rex Banner demands, "What kind of pet shop is filled with rambunctious yahoos and hot jazz music at 1 a.m.?" After thinking it over, Moe offers, "Um.. the best damn pet shop in town!" to which everyone holds their beers above their heads and cheers before quickly hiding them again.

Later, after the whole incident is settled, Homer proposes a toast: “To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems.”

02. Lemon of Troy

Springfield’s historic Lemon Tree is stolen by a gang of ruffians from Shelbyville. Bart, Milhouse, Nelson, Todd, Martin, and Database go undercover in Shelbyville to retrieve it. Hilarity ensues. This episode is sheer brilliance, allowing a whole bunch of minor characters to shine, especially the kids. It’s one of those wonderful Simpsons episodes where almost everything that is said can stand alone as a one-liner, but the dialogue never feels stilted or forced.

Great Moments: After failing to learn Roman Numerals in school earlier in the episode, Bart must determine what the Roman Numeral for 7 is to escape a lion cage. Remembering the Rocky movies, he says, “Wait a minute! Rocky II plus Rocky V equals Rocky VII: Adrian’s Revenge!”

The kids split up into teams. Bart and Milhouse form “Omega Team,” Todd and Database become “Team Strike Force,” and before Bart can assign Martin and Nelson a name, Martin exclaims “Team Discovery Channel!” to which Nelson groans and says, “Your wussiness better come in handy.”

And then, one of my favorite Simpsons exchanges of all time, between Bart and his Shelbyville equivalent while Bart is undercover:

   Shelby: We just got word there's Springfield kids in town.

            [all the kids growl]

        Bart: Curse those handsome devils!

01. You Only Move Twice

This is it. The pinnacle. I have never seen and am sure I never WILL see
an episode as brilliant as You Only Move Twice. Homer gets a job he’s
actually GOOD at for once, only his boss is an evil genius (but a nice guy!)
and his family hates their new town. Albert Brooks as Hank Scorpio is
hands down the funniest guest appearance in any episode. Every one of
his lines is pure gold. Marge’s descent into alcoholism (“I’ve found myself
drinking a glass of wine every day! I know doctors say you should drink a
glass and a half but I just can't drink that much!”), Lisa’s allergies to
everything, and Bart being forced into a remedial class are all hilarious,
but Scorpio and Homer steal the show.

Great Moments: To demonstrate said show-stealing, I believe these will
do nicely:

 Hank: Hi, Homer. What can I do for you?

Homer: Sir, I need to know where I can get some business hammocks.

 Hank: Hammocks? My goodness, what an idea. Why didn't I think of that?

       Hammocks! Homer, there's four places. There's the Hammock Hut,

   that's on third.

Homer: Uh-huh.

 Hank: There's Hammocks-R-Us, that's on third too. You got

       Put-Your-Butt-There.

Homer: Mm-Hmm.

 Hank: That's on third. Swing Low, Sweet Chariot... Matter of fact,

       they're all in the same complex; it's the hammock complex on

       third.

Homer: Oh, the hammock district.

 Hank: That's right.

 Hank: By the way, Homer, what's your least favorite country: Italy or

       France?

Homer: France.

 Hank: [chuckles]  Nobody ever says Italy.  [sets the coordinates of a

       giant laser gun]

Hank: If you need anything, you call me.

Homer: All right. What's the number?

 Hank: I've never had to call my own company. Someone will tell you

       upstairs. But, Homer, on your way out, if you wanna kill

       somebody, it would help a lot.

Fucking hell, that’s funny. Nothing on TV will ever be written like that again. 
And so, as The Simpsons continues to be unfunny and they plan to 
release a movie in celebration, I have appreciated this retrospective on what 
used to be Television’s Greatest Show.

Top Five Lamest Pitchfork Reviews Ever

I don’t hate on Pitchfork. I visit the site daily, I’m going to their festival for the second year in a row, and, for the most part, I agree with their music taste. That’s not to say that I swear by them or that they’re always right. Rather, I believe they’ve done much more good than harm in the music world, and I get a bit tired of seeing people immediately dismiss a new band because of hype that Pitchfork has given it. (Just learn to think, everyone, and it will be OK.)

That said, sometimes Pitchfork reviews are unforgivably bad. Whether it is because the reviewer decides to tell a cute story rather than review an album, or because they talk about “the cultural zeitgeist” rather than review an album, or whatever, Pitchfork has a tendency of being Kinda Lame on Occasion. I exclude the reviews are clearly joke-oriented from my criticism, because there’s nothing I love more than a good laugh at Louis XIV’s expense. Instead, the reviews I take issue with give albums either incredibly mediocre or inexplicably wonderful scores without saying much of anything about the music contained within.

So, we here at Swim Through Frequencies have taken it upon ourselves to compile a list of:

The Five Lamest Pitchfork Reviews Ever Without Mentioning that Flaming Lips Album they Gave a 0.0 Because They Already Know that was Silly

1. The Weakerthans – Left and Leaving

Rating: 6.1

Sam Eccleston, throughout his four-paragraph and two-line review of Left and Leaving, does not mention one single song title. In fact, he only ever quotes lyrics from the album once, and he GETS THEM WRONG. So, you might ask, what does he spend the review talking about? Well, the first two paragraphs (of, I will remind you again, a four-paragraph review) debating whether or not The Weakerthans are Punk or Emo.

And that’s retarded.

One listen to Left and Leaving by anyone with even a fleeting knowledge of punk rock should be more than enough to determine that this album is far, far away from punk. So John Sampson used to be in Propaghandi (a fact that Eccleston seems to think is important enough to mention again and again), does that mean his entire musical catalogue has to be punk rock?

Then, after a paragraph where he basically says he’s kinda bored with the record without doing any actual, you know, REVIEWING, the final paragraph is ONCE AGAIN a meditation on punk being “dead”. I’m not even really convinced that he listened to the album past the first song whose lyrics he misquotes.

2. Minus the Bear – Highly Refined Pirates

Rating: 5.4

Eric Carr says he can sum up Minus the Bear’s debut album in a sentence provided to him by his brother: “It’s indie rock. Eh.”

If I could sum up his review, I would choose this sentence provided to me by Eric Carr: “How can an album as tight, consistent, and energetic as Highly Refined Pirates be at once so thoroughly unimpressive?” That’s actually a good question, Eric! I would answer YOUR question with a question: “What makes sense about that sentence?”

I don’t have a problem with Pitchfork not liking this album. They can not like whatever they want. My problem with the review stems from two factors:

1) They gave MTB’s debut EP, This is What I Know About Being Gigantic, an 8.6. MTB’s sound did not change nearly enough (especially if Carr admits that the album is “tight, consistent, and energetic) to warrant such a score drop from EP to album. A different person wrote the review for the EP, however, which may be part of the issue.

2) Carr, like Eccleston before him, keeps the actual reviewing of the music to a minimum. He repeats over and over that he’s heard it all before, but with no specifics to back his opinion up. Even when he actually mentions song titles (he mentions two that he likes in the last paragraph, both conspicuously at the beginning of the album) he doesn’t say anything about them, just that he thinks they’re pretty good.

3. YACHT – I Believe in You Your Magic is Real

Rating: 6.8

Dan Deacon – Spiderman of the Rings

Rating: 8.7

Both of these albums, while certainly not incredibly similar, can be described as “Glitch Pop.” In Rob Mitchum’s review of I Believe in You…, he cannot freaking stop comparing it to Max Tundra’s 2002 Mastered by Guy at the Exchange. He just cannot stop. As far as I can tell, the fact that YACHT’s album is influenced by MBG@TE but isn’t as good as it (in Rob Mitchum’s opinion) is reason enough to give the album a 6.8. Alright, whatever.

The review of Dan Deacon’s Spiderman of the Rings, however, an album clearly influenced just as much (if not more so) by MBG@TE, never sees Tundra’s album mentioned once and gets slapped with an 8.7. Again, different reviewers, but you’d think someone would have gone “Hang on a minute!”

4. Art Brut – Bang Bang Rock and Roll

Rating: 8.9

To get right to the point, Rob Mitchum’s review of Art Brut’s debut album reads more like a press release than a piece of music journalism. Accented with big, CapsLock’d, bold excerpts from the album’s lyrics (which just make me feel like Eddie Argos is shouting at me even when I’m not listening to his music), Mitchum can’t seem to get over how fucking funny these cats are! Every time he mentions a line, its either “sly” (about “Formed a Band”) or “the best joke on the album” (about the title track) or “hilarious” (a sweeping statement about pretty much the entire thing). It hurts me that, just because indie rock is “Too Too Serious” or whatever, whenever someone shows up with even the slightest hint of humor (Argos, James Murphy) they’re hailed as saviors. I doubt many people would find anything laugh-out-loud funny about Bang Bang Rock and Roll. Maybe Argos’ plea for kids to “Stay off the crack!” at the end of “My Little Brother,” but there HAS to be something more to the album than just some witty one-liners, right?

Apparently not for Mitchum. “Art Brut, through their thoroughly unpretentious embrace of pretentiousness, are the most punk new band I've heard in years, punk having lost itself long ago to the pretentiousness of unpretentiousness.” Yeah, alright. Whatever.

5. Joanna Newsom – Joanna Newsom and the Ys Street Band EP

Rating: 8.7

Alright now, before someone gets the wrong idea, we here at Swim Through Frequencies love Joanna Newsom with all of our hearts and souls. We even love “Colleen”, the only real song on Newsom’s three-song Ys Street Band EP. That’s right, the EP is three songs long, two of which are simply orchestrated (and, in the case of “Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie”, unnecessary) versions of old songs. So, what makes this EP worth reviewing, let along slapping a “Best New Music” label on it? Fuck if I know. Pitchfork HAS a section for individual tracks, and “Colleen” could have easily been reviewed there. It’s basically all Doug Wolk talks about in his review anyway. Although I can hardly find fault with Wolk’s writing (he does a fairly good job, he’s just got so little material to grapple with) the review is unnecessary, absurdly highly rated, and awarded “Best New Music” seemingly just because it’s from Newsom.

It's Time for List Time

Well, it’s about that time. The start of July marks the end of the first 50% of the year, so we here at Swim Through Frequencies conform to the time-honored tradition of making an:

Alliterative Half Year-End List of Best Albums (So Far) (Remix)

(note: there would totally be pictures to accompany this story, if Blogger didn't suck so hard. Swim Through Frequencies apologizes for the aesthetic inconvenience.)

10. Justice - †

Funky Frenchmen fuse fun frequencies.

09. Arcade Fire – Neon Bible

Loud & largely legit. Less liked than last LP, lol.

08. Twilight Sad – Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters

Scots’ supreme sound sparks soiled slacks.

07. Of Montreal – Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?

Manic meta-Montrealians’ music makes misery merry.

06. Panda Bear – Person Pitch

AC alum’s album un-abashedly awesome.

05. Battles – Mirrored

Math make music more meticulous, mind-blowing.

04. Lil’ Wayne - Da Drought 3

Smoke spliffs, stay stoned, snack sufficiently, spit succulent sonnets.

03. Menomena - Friend and Foe

Muppet melody mars moniker, music meanwhile marvelous.

02. White Rabbits – Fort Nightly

Debut declares dudes as deft, dramatic, definitely deserving of dues.

01. The National - Boxer

Bands: Besting Boxer? Bonne chance.

My Favorite Silly/Awesome Things Rappers Have Ever Said

“Climb behind vagina, then I hymen grind her.”

- Cam’ron, “Harlem Streets”

In an action that I cannot imagine being comfortable for either party involved, Cam’ron manages to position himself behind a woman’s vagina (presumably in her fallopian tubes or uterus) and “grind” all over her hymen.

In addition, according to Wikipedia, “Many sources, including romance novels or anything that describes virginity loss, mistakenly indicate that the hymen is somewhere up inside the vagina. This is a common misconception. The hymen is part of the external genitalia.” So, therefore, Cam’ron’s repositioning of himself is actually counterproductive to his goals. He should have stayed in front of vagina, to better grind the woman’s hymen.

Swim Through Frequencies cannot fathom why anyone on this earth would want to do this.

“Who knew you could fit on your wrist a whole pound of diamonds?”

- T.I., “King Back”

This line is awesome because of how I picture T.I. coming to this realization, in an Unbreakable-ish sort of scene where, after piling several ounces of diamonds on his wrist, he kept demanding, “More weight.” After his discovery, he felt it extremely necessary to inform the listening public that it is, in fact, possible to fit an entire pound of diamonds on your wrist if you have that sort of disposable cash.

“I'm super I'll make a bitch squirm for my, Super Sperm”

- Method Man, “Method Man”

The entirety of “Method Man” really deserves to be quoted in this list, but I don’t really have the room. Method Man says things like “Paddycake paddycake/ Hey! The Method Man!” in this song, but nothing is quite as silly or misguided as the above quoted line.

As far as I can tell, Method Man is trying to express that women have an intense desire to receive his sperm, which has some sort of wonderful power. However, his choice of the word “squirm,” while it is an obvious enough choice to rhyme with “sperm,” conjures up images of girls being held prisoner while they struggle to get away, rather than willingly accepting (or hankering after) Meth’s little Men.

On top of that (feel free to correct me if I’m wrong here) I doubt there are very many girls who, no matter who they’re sleeping with, actually are after the sperm of said man. Those tend to be just an unpleasant after effect, rather than the prize. Maybe with Method Man, it’s different case.

Still, gross.

“Niggas ask why I use my glock. Cause it’s 2003, motherfucker! I refuse to box.”

- Trife, “Biscuts”

This, like the T.I. quote, is funny and awesome because of the scene that must be occurring around Trife at the time:

*Trife shoots a guy*

BYSTANDER: Hey, Trife. I noticed that you chose to shoot that man with a gun, instead of challenging him to a boxing match. Why is that?

TRIFE: Man, haven’t you seen a calendar lately? It’s 2003, man. Guns are in. Boxing is old hat.

This line can also be applied to Trife busting a cap in a punching bag, Trife answering a challenge by Apollo Creed, Trife being annoyed by a cartoon Kangaroo that he thinks is a mouse, and Trife attempting to mail a present to his mom by shoving it in the barrel of his gun and slapping a stamp on it instead of gift wrapping it.

“Sit on my lap. It’s not a gat, sugar.”

- Ghostface Killah, “Good”

When taking a job as a mall Santa every year, Ghostface must reassure his young customers that what they feel underneath them is not a concealed weapon, but simply his erect penis.

“Runnin around here like some brand new pussy that's about to get fucked”

- DMX, “What’s My Name?”

In another borderline pedophilic line, DMX compares “Rap niggas” who are “still actin up” despite DMX’s numerous reminders that this is not a fucking game to a band spanking new vagina that is moments away from participating in intercourse.

Now, unless a woman has something along the lines of a Vaginal Transplant (which I just made up), “brand new pussy” cannot really be anything other than an infant’s vagina fresh out of the womb. Why anyone in their right mind would want to have sex with this infant, how said infant would “run around,” and why DMX would ever, ever burn such a horrifying image into my mind are all left unanswered.

“I get head in the strangest places.”

- Lil’ Wayne, “Suck It or Not”

Cam’ron and Lil’ Wayne talk a lot about how many beej’s they get in this song, and I guess the listener is supposed to sort of smile awkwardly and say, “Good for you,” while patting them condescendingly. This line is particularly interesting, however, because Wayne refuses to clarify which places, specifically, he is receiving fellatio, leaving it all up to the listener’s imagination. Some of my favorites:

On top of a blimp as it crashes to the ground

The Cretaceous period

The admissions office of Liberty University

On the set of The ‘L’ Word

Album of the Month: June 2007

White Rabbits - Fort Nightly

Because if every band's debut album sounded like this, no one would care about the Sophomore Slump.


(I don't care that this came out on May 22, because I get to make up my own rules like that.)

ATTN: T.I. and/or T.I.P.

I'm trying really hard to be excited for your new album, T.I. vs. T.I.P., and I was doing a pretty good job until I read the finalized track list.
It is, without a doubt, the most disappointing list of Guest Rappers that I have ever seen in my life. Wyclef? Busta Rhymes?
NELLY?
Even Jay-Z and Eminem can't get me excited. Jay's shit-tastic verse in Rihanna's otherwise awesome "Umbrella" was pretty much the nail in the coffin for him, and Eminem of late is just a sad self-parody (although I have always liked him better as a guest rapper, so maybe he'll surprise me).
Why, Clifford? Why would you tempt me with Lil' Wayne and R. Kelly collaborations just to laugh in my face like this? It's not like Lil' Wayne has anything better to do! The man breathes, eats, and shits rap. You could have pulled him aside after filming the "We Takin' Over" video, had him freestyle for 50 seconds and then never spoken to him again and his verse would probably STILL be better than whatever crap Busta talks about these days.
Have you HEARD "I Love My Bitch"? It's like getting fucked in the ear canal by will.i.am over and over again.
I'm astounded there's not a MA$E or a Mystikal collaboration on here or something. At least those guys names look silly printed on a CD jacket. The people you've picked are just boring.
Goddammit.

Growin' On Me

When there was nothing better to do (read: 80% of the time) at school, my friend Josh and I would turn the TV on to MTV U, MTV’s college-only station that (to its credit) plays music videos pretty much 24/7, in hopes of catching the new My Chemical Romance video or the acoustic version of Korn’s “Freak on a Leash” (featuring Amy Lee of Evanescence!).

More often than not, however, we would be greeted with either MTV News, or Tokyo Police Club’s “Nature of the Experiment” video. Now, I’ll admit that I had never heard of Tokyo Police Club before seeing them on MTV U so, first and foremost, fuck you, MTV, for ruining the Indie Cred which I had so meticulously accrued.

The first time we watched it, I remember both of us being really befuddled. The song clocks in at one second more than two minutes, making it an odd choice for a single. It was catchy, sure, but it seemed like more of the same lo-fi, garage-ish bands that have served as a peace offering from mainstream media to indie rock kids over the past few years (The Strokes, The White Stripes, etc.). On top of that, it barely had verses. Each was literally two lines, the first one consisting of “We’ve got our tracks covered / thanks to your older brother” before it kicked in to the bridge. This irked me.

The video itself didn’t help matters much. It was an acceptably quirky affair, with band members being wrapped in Saran Wrap by other band members and silly little shapes and colors floating around. But every once in a while, the video would do a close up on the lead singer’s face which, while not ugly, certainly contorted in to some unattractive expressions while he was singing.

So, I dismissed it at first as just another song: Not particularly bad, but not really worth a second listen.

But, due to the fact that MTV U has, apparently, only 12 videos in its rotation, I saw “Nature of the Experiment” about ten times in the last two months of the spring semester. Over that period, the song bounced around in my head long enough that I began to notice things that I really liked about it.

First of all, the xylophone* (which is automatically awesome) is allowed to echo dreamily through the song, adding a unique sound to what is otherwise straightforward indie pop.

There is also one synchronized yelp of “Go!” from the entire band at the beginning, which is rad. Tokyo Police Club seem to like doing this, because there is a lot of full-band yelling in their new (and superb) single, “Your English is Good.”

The closing riff of the song is also really good, and although the instrumentation doesn’t change all that much throughout the song, it’s short enough that this riff makes it sound pretty fresh the entire time.

Upon listening to several of their other songs, Tokyo Police Club no longer comes across as just another band doing the garage rock thing. They sound fresh and like they’re having a really good time and like they mean it. Here’s to their album (if it ever comes out) maintaining that feeling.

*Upon further investigation, the instrument turns out to be a glockenspiel. The difference? Xylophones have wooden bars, glockenspiels have metal bars. Thanks, Wikipedia! Swim Through Frequencies apologizes for the error.

The BEST Songs #3

In which Lil’ Wayne becomes The Best Rapper Alive.

The thing that’s going to be most difficult with this song is trying to choose which lyrics are the best. Because, in all seriousness, every single word that comes out of Wayne’s mouth in this song is just fucking incredible. From “Call me automatic Weezy, bitch, I keep spitting” in the first verse to “I take you to the shootout, baby, win, lose, or draw” as he raps over police sirens, Wayne’s verses are short, tight, and perfect. It’s a song that allows the rapper to breathe, with guest hook-singer Robin Thicke taking his sweet time, and letting Weezy run circles around him.

The middle verse, a lyrical bombing of radio stations, reads like a Best Of Lil’ Wayne list, highlighting pretty much everything that he does best. First of all, his flow switches twice in this song, and it works perfectly going from the fast-paced assault in verse one to the laid-back, confident drawl in the second. That isn’t to say that he isn’t still on the offensive in the second verse. Nothing could be further from the truth: Every word he says is another slug in the chest. “Stop being rapper racist, region haters, spectators, dictators, behind-door dick-takers. It’s outrageous,” he says to radio stations across America. That he can even say that line with such serious delivery (because it’s fucking hilarious, in a good way) is amazing to me. It’s not just the image of radio executives getting fucked in a back room somewhere, it’s all the unanswered questions that make me love that line: Why are they being fucked? Rape? Pleasure? Bribery? Who’s doing the fucking? Corporate America? Clear Channel? G-Unit?

Even more amazing to me is that this song is a single, which by definition demands radio play. But, as if to prove Weezy’s point or just to spite him because he hurt someone’s feelings, the song barely charted on the U.S. Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Charts at number 97. It didn’t even touch the Hot 100.

So, yeah, Wayne insults a lot of people in this song, but he does it in a way that makes his jibes fact instead of speculation. Like the masterful Jay-Z diss track “Takeover” (which causes me to think Nas is a total pussy whenever I listen to it) “Shooter” works its magic by hitting all the right buttons and making its author sound like a champion of the people and making everyone else a fucking joke.

“This is Southern. Face it: If we too simple, then y’all don’t get the basics.”

Pow.

The BEST Songs #2

For every rap song about love, there are 400 about anything else. Hell, I think there are more songs commemorating dead homies than there are ones about being in love. Sure, there’s Cannibal Ox’s “The F Word” (which is awesome) and a handful of songs from The Streets’ A Grand Don’t Come for Free (depending whether or not you call that rap), but you can probably hear 52 Cam’ron songs on MTV Hits about “hymen grinding” before you hear one song about love, and it’ll most likely be by Ne-Yo.

To me, it’s fitting that Ghostface Killah, the most critically acclaimed rapper who you’ll never hear on the radio, is one of the MC’s with a rare love song. By the time The Pretty Toney Album came out in 2004, I imagine Ghost must have been confused and angry. Ma$e’s new album was selling better than his, and Method Man had a TV show while all Ghostface had was this short (albeit genius) series of clips on MTV2. So Ghostface dropped the “Killah” from his name, told Raekwon to wait outside for a little while, and wrote a song about his girl. Because, fuck it. Nothing else was working.

Not that “Save Me Dear” blew up the charts or anything (it wasn’t even a single, sadly). Hell, The Pretty Toney Album didn’t even cause popguns to go off. This was the year “Jesus Walks” was making everyone a little more holy, and when forced to choose between asking Jesus and Ghostface’s Girl for salvation, the Big Guy upstairs had a longer reputation for reliability. So “Save Me Dear,” a simply remarkable song, went unnoticed.

Until now (Oh Snap).

The first thing that’s great about “Save Me Dear” is that Ghostface himself produced it. Ghost is by no means a producer by trade (or else the RZA would have nothing to do), which is why it’s something of a minor miracle that the production sounds as good as it does. It’s got horns, but not in a “MY NAME IS JUST BLAZE HAVE SOME FUCKING HORNS” kinda way, more like a Madlib, jazz-sampling way. The fact that Ghost thought this song was important enough that he wanted to create every aspect is something special. That’s love right there, man.

The hook, sung by Old Jazz Dude, gets extra endearing when Ghost himself sorta warbles along with him after the second verse. And, speaking of Ghostface’s warbles, the lyrics here do something that few, if any, other Ghostface songs do: They make sense. Pitchfork’s Jamin Warren, in his awesome capsule review of Supreme Clientele for their “2000-2004: The Top Albums of the Decade’s First Half” feature, wrote, “To be honest, I understand Toney about 40% of the time, and anyone claiming to do better can kiss my mulatto ass.” So to have “Save Me Dear” make pretty much perfect sense all the way through and not fuck up anything that makes Ghostface’s lyrics or delivery Supreme

One cool thing that he does, lyrically, is devotes 70% of the first verse to narration from his girl’s point of view. This allows him to escape his thug persona for a little while and lets his listeners see Ghostface (as a character) in a new light.

“She said, ‘If you shoot, you ain't the real Pretty Tone / Baby, come home, you not alone, be strong whether right or wrong’…” he raps in the middle of this first verse. And then, at the end, “‘And, hey, don't worry bout that jam, you gonna smash 'em / Whose asking? You're still to come / Stay focused, keep it cool, you know I love you’” to which Ghostface responds, “Love you too, babe, thank you.” It’s a tenderness that you can almost never find in rap lyrics, and it really works to Ghost’s advantage.

But, as any good writer knows, it ruins your story to betray a character’s true nature, so Ghost walks a very fine line, like Tupac in “Dear Mama” or “Thug’s Mansion”, between gangsta and sweetheart. In fact, the best line in the song is the one that finds that exact balance: “I'ma sell my guns, and with the cash I'ma bring you to Vegas.” Touching, n’est pas?

In short, Ghostface has written a song that masters a nearly untouched niche in rap music, and one that deserves further exploration. If rappers want to stay relevant as their music becomes more and more mainstream, they’re going to need to take a cue from Ironman: Show some love.