Penny For Your Thoughts?

(Disclaimer: The title of this post both refers to the subject of the text and references the amazing song from the film "Waiting For Guffman")
Ok, so for the past two and a half years I have been at a job that has afforded me to live rather comfortably. Not quite "Downtown is a great place to buy right now" comfortable, but more like "Oh, I would love to meet you for drinks at Crustacean after work" comfortable. So, after a series of very large, unexpected expenses this month, I have been forced into something of which the mere mention makes me shudder...a BUDGET! I know, I can just feel the earth move under my ruby-encrusted loafers as we speak.

So, for the first time in a while I'm really having to watch those dollars. In a sense, it's kind of fun. It makes me feel so "early 20s" having to say things like "I can't dude, I'm broke" and "do the 99 cent pupusas come with meat or is that extra?". It's also sort of a fun little mission. I'm always furiously trying to undercut my daily allotment so I can have that $10 cushion at the end of the week for a bowl of Pad Thai or something (that sounded way more bleak when I typed it out than in my head). It is sort of funny how quickly you lose momentum to save money as the month goes on, though. I mean, the first 5 days it was: "Instant brown rice with hot sauce for dinner?? Hell yes let's do this!". At this point, if I have one more bowl of rice/grains for dinner I think my stomach and lower intestines are going to collapse in on themselves. And not in a good way.
I do find myself totally overspending on a whim and vehemently defending myself to some imaginary parent figure that hangs over me. "What!? It's the weekend! And these 4 whiskey sours certainly aren't going to enjoy themselves now are they!?". I mean, let's get real, we ALL know that a budget doesn't apply on Saturdays. So what I find myself doing is diligently undercutting my budget during the week, getting to Friday and completely exceeding the margin by which I saved, and then recalculating my finances every Sunday, and having less and less to spend each day. I'm currently at a $6 daily max. Needless to say I'm white-knuckling it until April 1st.
However, it is also very encouraging to know that I CAN live on a really tight budget (albeit barely). I mean, I may have to skip paying my electric bill this month but what am I, some kind of fanatic?? So now this opens up a whole new world for saving money! I mean, if I can drop nearly $1,000 on miscellaneous expenses and still survive, then I can put away cash like nobody's beeswax right into the ol' savings account. Who knows, at this rate, I could be spending my next summer sipping chocolate martinis at the London W. Or, more likely, I could be the proud owner of a new humidifier.
So here's to trying something new and acting like an adult-ish!

Siri-ously Popular

Check this out you guys: This little video I worked on just went viral and is sweeping the nation with its comedy (naturally)! If only my 23 pratfalls I did during the shoot ended up in the final cut!

Make sure you all check this little baby out and comment on it!

What's the Deal, Disney?

So, per my ongoing campaign to be current, topical, cutting edge and relevant, I thought I would take a few minutes to talk about Disney. When I used to go visit my older sister, or perhaps were babysitting my nieces/nephews, I always liked to rifle through her expansive and well-preserved VHS collection. I consistently found myself tossing aside the James Bonds and the Hitchcocks and all that highfalutin business and going straight for those old nostalgic Disney flicks! After watching about a dozen over the course of a few months, I couldn’t help but notice that there was a starkly consistent motif (or a set of motifs, rather) in all those “innocuous” little fables. By the way, when I talk about “Disney films”, I mean the period of animated features between the late 80s and early 2000s. The Golden Age of Disney as far as I’m concerned. Not just because that period happens to be bracketed by my personal childhood, but because it’s OBVIOUSLY a universal understanding.
Let’s talk about the Disney Hero. Of all these films where the male is the protagonist, the characters all seemed to want the exact same thing: he wants money, he wants fame, he wants to be handsome and get with that foxy Disney princess. What does Simba want? To be KING. What does Aladdin want? To be RICH. What does Quasimoto want? To NOT look fucked up! Pretty simple. So, as much as they have a “heart of gold” or a “diamond in the rough” quality, these dudes are fucking selfish! However, I do feel like “he” is the classic example of a heterosexual male chasing the American dream: he’s wide-eyed, he’s ambitious, he’s not always ethical but is charming enough to get away with it. We’ve all seen it before. And of course when faced with great adversity, the hero overcomes with his bravery, valor blah blah blah we get it. The “everyman” always wins.

A more interesting character is the Disney princess. Again, she always wants the same thing: she seems to be stuck in some oppressive environment where her whole life has been predetermined by her society or family. The girl just wants to be FREE! Belle just wants to get out of her provincial town, Ariel just wants to wiggle her ginger tail up on to land, Jasmine just wants to escape the palace etc.. The women are always the rebels. In every way that the heroes want to induct themselves into the context of the monarchy or ruling family, the princess just wants to escape it. The impression is that she is capable of and destined for greater things than what is expected of her. Think outside the box, ladies. However, there’s always some turning point where she gets captured because she’s a “weak woman” or makes some giant compromise related to the hero that catapults her into some huge drama. It’s ONLY the love of her hero counterpart that seems to set her free. What’s that about? All she wants to do is be her own woman but Disney is telling us that heterosexual unions are the answer to this crisis of identity. This may be undergrad film courses talking, but it’s kind of reminiscent of those old Melodramas/Women’s films from the 40s. Remember “Now, Voyager” with Bette Davis? Me too. That girl was a fucking weirdo (in a charming way, obviously) who just wanted independence but it turns out the love of a good man is all you really need to feel good about yourself. We sure have come a long way with collective ideological thinking vis a vis cinema.
That leaves my personal favorite character: The Disney villain! Ok, let’s be real for a second you guys, could the villains in these movies be ANY queerer if they tried?? Think about it: Jafar, Ursula, Scar…? There was something so starkly homosexual about all those antagonists. And in all the stories, the villains just wanted what came so naturally to the heroes. Obviously the notion of a villain is that they have been marginalized for one reason or another, but there’s just this effeminate (or butch, if female) quality in all of these characters. It’s as if to spread the notion that the gays are just shifty, divisive plodders who just lust after what the heterosexuals have. Because obviously they’re too lazy to work hard for their success, they just cook up some mischievous scheme to get everything they want. And of course they temporarily do, but everything goes to shit because THAT kind of person doesn’t have the integrity and the strength to maintain an empire. And naturally the brave straights dude come in and put everyone in their place etc. Not that I support villainous behavior, I just wanted to share MY observation about the latent tropes in these stories.
Anyway, that’s all. Just something I noticed and thought I would share with y’all. Don’t get me wrong for one second, I love these films, but I also don’t think Disney is the most politically forward thinking group of creative storytellers. Just keep an eye out, eh?

Album Review: Women - Public Strain

Women have always been a band of contradictions. Blending sleek, tight songwriting with unpredictably experimental riffs. After every blissed out nugget of pure, feel-good pop, the band leads us down a darker, more uncertain road where their rock-leanings start to weigh heavy. On their self-titled debut, the band found itself having a harder time negotiating the space between these two worlds. While each track fit one way or the other, the album felt somewhat polarized and at odds with itself. On Public Strain, Women are more comfortable in their own skin. This sophomore release finds a much more mature and confident band fleshing out their sound and effortlessly collapsing the line between the experimental and the pop.

If their first record was a cursory exploration into the genre, Public Strain finishes what Women started. Here, each song is given time to gestate. From the languid, yet sonically ripe opener to the poetically optimistic closing track, each song feels like more of a complete statement. Where earlier tracks like “Cameras” or “Group Transport Hall” felt staunched by the band’s somewhat gratuitous brevity, songs here like “Heat Distraction” and “Locust Valley” are able to harness the band’s pop-sensibility while still fostering that wandering sense of discovery that makes the band flourish.

Public Strain also leaps ahead of the debut in its much more evolved sense of grandeur. Each song here sounds bigger, more resonant, and, most importantly, more emotionally charged than ever before. On “Venice Lockjaw”, the band shows itself not being afraid to be vulnerable and sincere. The gentle strum of the guitar, the understated beat, and the earnest but never mawkish vocals flow like water in this ballad. Each delicate little pluck of the strings feels like a drop of rain falling outside while someone lies in bed with you and tells you their deepest secrets. This is somewhat of a new territory for Women, one that they fit into beautifully. With this newfound sense of emotional intensity, the album feels more poetic and cinematic, and hits with much more impact.

There is one unfortunate flaw here, however. “Penal Colony” sits in the middle of this album like a dead weight. The repetitive, tedious beat, the half-baked melody, and the unimaginative sonic arrangement languish in this track, and to no good end. As Flagel croons “faces start to blend/meets a sudden end/ and you’re gone completely”, it feels less like a wistful, nihilistic meditation and more like a sad, pretentious cliché.

Having said that, Women have crafted an outstanding second album here. Public Strain is still very much loyal to the band’s signature sound, but further investigates what they are capable of. While the songwriting expands and wanders deeper into new territory here, the album ultimately feels tighter in scope and vision. Every rough edge from the debut is deftly smoothed out on Public Strain. As the wall between the traditional and the unpredictable slowly crumbles away here, Women show us that there is a very powerful and exciting space in between.

-Brett

Album Review: Ducktails — Ducktails III: Arcade Dynamics

Well, it’s that time of year again…spring is approaching. Sort of. In spite of the fact that most of the country is still getting hit with torrential rain storms and cold fronts, Ducktails is ushering us into the warm glow of a new season. On Ducktails III: Arcade Dynamics, the foggy, low-fi haze of Landscapes has burned off. In many ways, Arcade is the exact opposite of its predecessor: Landscapes was the boardwalk at dusk, it was west coast beachy, it was sparse, spacey and twinkly. Arcade travels east to the Hamptons in the sun. It’s riding bikes along the lake, it’s white sweaters and Keds. On the surface, this record is more full-bodied, more dynamic and more fun than anything the band has done. There’s just one problem: with a brighter, more traditional songwriting style, Ducktails has lost the beautiful, atmospheric ambience that made it great.­

After the release of Landscapes, the Mirror Image EP seemed to be a good indication of where their sound was going; Ducktails found itself a bit stronger and more confident, without sacrificing the whimsy and dreamy. On “Apple Walk”, the band found itself hitting with more force, but the light, spacey strums of the guitar created an aura around the song. For as “sunny” as the song was, it was still imbued with emotion. It felt like a road trip through the countryside. It flowed, it had feeling, it was evocative. The band was still letting the songs wander and drift through different sonic spaces. The sound moved and turns like a sine wave; keeping a constant rhythm and pattern, but still drifting in and out freely. On Arcade, the band loses this sense of freedom.

With this new release, the music has a much too much structure for its own good. The overall template is the same, but there’s something missing. Nothing wanders, nothing drifts, that sense of nostalgia that once pervaded in the songs seems dulled. Because the hazy atmosphere of Landscapes is gone, the sound on Arcade seems dry and over-regimented. There doesn’t quite feel like there’s the same level of magic. For all the glistering, effervescent flourishes Landscapes had, Arcade feels uninspired by comparison. The beats are over-structured, the light pluck of the acoustic guitar feels neat and orderly, but nothing transcends. Without the moody ambience, Ducktails sounds too trapped by their own sound.

Don’t get me wrong, this is a very fun record. From the first note, Ducktails is able to do what they do very well and that is conjure an image. When you hear this music, you think of a time, a place, and a circumstance. You can taste the saltwater from the beach. You feel the sea breeze. It’s not to say that this music is completely non-emotive, but after these songs are done, nothing lingers. It doesn’t leave the listener with feeling, but feels more like a fleeting visit that is staunched too soon.


The album, however, has one key track: “Killing the Vibe”. This song has the pizzazz and the sense of youth that the band seems to flourish on, here. This is the perfect anthem for Spring and, eventually, Summer. The track exists in its own little world. As if you’ve pushed off your raft into the lake and are enjoying a cocktail with your closest friend. When Mondanile asks us “can’t you just sit a while?/and try your hardest to smile?”, we have no choice but to acquiesce. The simple, light guitar riff and the lively snap of the tambourine entice us to join that party. It’s as if all sense of responsibility and obligation are left behind in this track.

So, that being said, there is nothing wrong with this album per se. It’s lovely. In fact, it’s delightful. But being delightful is not the same as being memorable. Ducktails have ditched whatever magical essence they used to possess in this record. Arcade is able to stay afloat with its levity and sense of charm, but doesn’t echo with much emotional resonance. And any sense of sonic experimentation is virtually gone here. But, while this might not bode terribly well for Ducktails, it’ll do just fine for this Spring…so pour yourself a nice cold dink and enjoy the sunshine. And just try not to kill the vibe.

-Brett