Building a Great Album: Side 1

Soundtrack: Black Dog, Led Zeppelin, for your listening pleasure.


Though albums are sold as CDs or digital tracklists these days, rather than tapes or records with two sides, there are certain features of the first half of an album's playing time, and certain features of the second half, that have held true even after we stopped having to flip over our tapes and records. This post is about what works on side one of an album.

I'll try to put links up at least one of the times I mention an album or band... but google works, folks, and unless I add a qualifier, I'd say that all the songs (and albums on which they are found, obviously, given the topic) are keepers, and worth a try. Unless you really disagree with my taste in music... which is OK, too.

1. As per Nick Hornby's Mixtape Rules from High Fidelity, the first track SHOULD be a great one... but it should also be a statement of purpose about what the album will be about (this has been true since Sergeant Pepper, the first modern album), and the second song should bring things up even higher, if possible-or go somehow further in the direction the album's going. No band has ever (or at least... SHOULD ever) put their most depressing song first. Or the one offbeat song that doesn't match the rest of the album's tone. The Joshua Tree put Bullet The Blue Sky fourth (a good place for a change of pace song), not first. White Stripes' Elephant also changes pace for tracks 4 and 5. Couldn't exactly gone any higher.

Led Zeppelin (Black Dog, Whole Lotta Love, Immigrant Song) and U2 (Where the Streets Have No Name, Beautiful Day) are two bands that are very good at picking a great opener. Like or dislike the entire album, with "And the Hazy Sea," Cymbals eat Guitars tells you exactly what you're getting. On an awesomer scale, "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" at the beginning of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" lets you know you're in for something really, really hot.

Other albums with really great first songs, or songs that set the tone really well: Funeral, by Arcade Fire (The Suburbs is probably a better album overall, but The Arcade Fire might never top that first song off their debut full-length). Purple Rain, by Prince (Let's Go Crazy), "Fever to Tell" and "It's Blitz" by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Weezer's "My Name is Jonas," is an amazing opening volley. "Until the Morning Comes" by Tindersticks. Yeah Yeah Yeah Song, by The Flaming Lips (At War With the Mystics is not their best, but probably their most fun album.)

Until the Morning Comes (Tindersticks)

2. The first three tracks should set out most of the album's sonic parameters, and if you only have four or five great songs for your album, it's not a bad idea to cash in two, or even three of them, in the first triple. If the goal of your album is to rock out, the advice given in High Fidelity (I think in the book: can't find it in the movie clips) stands: start strong, but make the second song even better, to serve notice that things are going to rock out, not peter out.

Greatest opening trios in my collection:
White Stripes: Elephant (Seven Nation Army, Black Math, which somehow, almost unbelievably, kicks it up another notch from the stunning opener, and then There's no Home For You Here, which nearly made me drive off the road the first time I listened to it in a car.)
Jeff Buckley: Grace (Mojo Pin, Grace, Last Goodbye)
U2: The Joshua Tree (Where the Streets Have no Name, I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For, With or Without You: Incredible!)

Yeah Yeah Yeahs: Zero. Shiny!


Other stellar opening trios: David Bowie: Ziggy Stardust (track 4's not bad, either), The Flaming Lips are very good at opening songs and trios that set out the tone for the album...and also kick ass, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs albums "Fever to Tell" and "It's Blitz" also do this really well, but the masters might be The White Stripes: all of their studio albums do this in spades, bringing the thunder while setting the soundscape.

Interestingly, the Beatles - album as genre pioneers - usually don't follow to the "first three tracks" rule

3. If there isn't a tone-shift track somewhere in the first five tracks (think "Bullet The Blue Sky" on Joshua Tree, or "Exit Music For a Film" on OK Computer, or "The Beautiful Ones" on Purple Rain), I stop expecting one, and start listening for if the album is consistent all the way through (Blood on the Tracks) instead. Changes of tone aren't needed, but it's a different type of album where the songs all combine into a very unified listening experience, instead of standing out a little, one from the other.

Back to part one.  On to part three.

Building a Great Album: On The Album as a Journey

From time to time I stop prattling on about Korea, and prattle on about music or film. If you prefer my Korea prattle, hang in there. I'll get back to it soon enough.

I love music. I don't have training in music, so it's not about the chords... it's about the place the music takes me. And if a four chord song can do it, that's fine. And if you need a masters' in music theory to explain it... that's fine, too. I'm like people who drive a car, but can't explain how the engine works: I don't quite understand how, but if it gets me where I want to go, we're good. And even if engineers tell me it's built very cleverly, if it doesn't get me there in a way I like, somebody else might, I don't really care what the engine specs are.

So you're welcome to disagree with me about which music I love, but I was just listening to OK Computer, and listened to "Exit Music For a Film" followed by "Let Down" followed by "Karma Police" -- which, despite having made so many great songs, might be the best three-song run Radiohead's ever strung together on an album. Might.

Exit Music (For a Film)


I almost always listen to albums. Maybe I'm a relic because of it. I don't grumble that digital music sounds different from vinyl, I don't have a hi-fi and a set of $800 headphones, but I believe that an artist who knows what they're doing puts enough care into the songs they write, and the order they appear in, and how they fit with each other, that it's worth listening to the album, to get what the artist was going for. Skipping to your three favorite tracks instead of listening to the album in the track order it was made, if the artist knows what they're doing, is the difference between going on a road trip with someone, and looking at the five best pictures they took on their way.

And these days, when the internet, and Youtube, have diminished the returns on making a full album, rather than condensing it into an EP, or releasing it as two EPs (each with their own hype buildup and lead singles), so much that an artist has no reason to make a full-length album... unless they have something to say that can't be broken into an EP. This is all the more reason to continue to listen to albums, to see if artists are worth their salt, before looking up the best songs on Youtube.

Let Down


Sgt. Pepper probably marked the beginning of the album as an artistic expression of its own, rather than just a collection of artistic expressions. The less nuanced approach was to put the most radio-friendly songs either at the beginning of side one, or the beginning of side two, or somewhere on the first side, as far as I can tell from checking the track lists of my pre-1967 albums. (this continued after Sgt. Pepper as well). Some bands still just put their most likely hits first, and pad out the rest. This is less forgivable than ever before, now that iTunes has rendered album filler obsolete, and extra annoying.

But there are still bands out there that can put together a hell of a good album, and this series, like my old bliss-out posts, is a little celebration of albums, particularly the ones that are well-built... and perhaps it's an elegy for them too, now that the album as artform is becoming less and less relevant in the face of music videos and EPs that can boast a higher hit-song to track-listing ratio (available for 99 cents on iTunes!)

Karma Police


There are a few keys to a well-constructed album, in my book. Not every well-made album has all these features, in the same way that not every relationship-driven drama involves a misunderstanding or deception in the second act... but enough do, that I'm not going to say this is why these albums work, but it's clear that this does work. I'm giving examples here from some albums I really like. Some of them are classics and all-time greats; others are middling albums where the only thing going for them might be that they were built the way they are... in fact, some of these albums are basically the equivalent of a mediocre painting with very good composition... which just makes the composition stand out more admirably.

Go to part 2 of the series.

Food Bloggers Unite! We need This!

This is the continuation of the "iPod Touch" post I wrote about Hi Expat.

Maybe this is just my fantasy, but here's the thing I'd really, really love to see: these days, there's tons of useful info about good eats around Korea out there, but it's scattered into so many places one needs the skills of a librarian and the patience of a turtle-trainer to really get the most useful details... and seeing the mini-maps on Hi Expat's page, got me thinking, "Why isn't it all on one huge google map?" -given that Korea changes so quickly, books don't really cut it anyway, especially on the restaurant scene, where places open and close all the time. A a wiki is a living document that can be constantly updated: exactly what we need.

So here's the idea: I don't have the tech savvy or the time to do it myself, but I'm sure it could be done: you know how everybody just KNOWS that The Korean Blog List is the starting point for every ambitious Would-blog-Expat? Well, I'd really like to see the food writers in Korea get together for a crowd-source-ish wiki-map of all the places they've collectively scouted out, all across Korea: you'll find one of Gangnam, or Jongno, or Jeonju, but imagine if it were all gathered into one place?

Here are the things I think it would need:
1. curators - to remove restaurants flagged by users for either being inaccurate/incompletely reviewed, or having closed, and to maintain at least some standards (Do we really need that MacDonalds in Guri marked? Really?)

2. a system for flagging a restaurant review, or a restaurant, for either incomplete or inaccurate information, or a restaurant that has closed since its review. Maybe a set of guidelines for when to flag a review, and when not to, so as not to waste time on "I totally disagreed with this reviewer's rating for service"

3. a way to add feedback to existing reviews (a second opinion) - HiExpat's restaurant guide has a good system for doing this. Maybe even a button to click if a review's been up for a few years to say, "This restaurant is still in existence" because I know how much it sucks to get a jones for a food, only to show up and have the place gone.

4. a standardized rating system including scores for price, menu, quality, service, atmosphere, and English spoken. (zenkimchi dining has a pretty good system)

5. a way to ban reviewers who violate a simple set of guidelines, or post spam links
6. when you click on a pin to see a preview of the location (see below)
the window that pops up should contain this information:

-links to any reviews of that location (if users can submit these themselves, it would save the curators time)

-a box you can check to flag it (for inaccurate reviews, dead links, no-longer-existent restaurants, or links that don't lead to reviews)

-a summary of the reviews so far (average overall rating or something)

-maybe (and I'm getting greedy here) a check box like at Amazon.com that shows "23 out of 31 people found this review useful" - but that might be getting a bit crowded.

6. searchable tags for entries (Chinese/Japanese/Indian/Vegetarian/Kangnam/Itaewon/Bundang/budget/romantic/etc.)

Whoever puts this together first wins.

Readers: in the comments, which websites have are the most useful food info for you, when you're, say, looking for "a chinese restaurant in Jamsil" or "shabu shabu in Jongno" or the like?

I've made one map - here it is - about finding good food in Jongno. Feel free to enjoy all the places here.

View Where Brian Should Eat: Jongno and Insadong in a larger map

Finally, this wouldn't be complete if I didn't plug the guy who totally gave me a free iPod Touch in the last post:

Go to Hi Expat and submit a few reviews of the places on his restaurant listings!

iPod Touch from HiExpat... sweet!

It's time for a bravo my life update readers. A few weeks ago, I got word about a new website called HiExpat. It's a page run by a guy named Dan, and he and his buddy are working to get it off the ground, to carve out a little corner of the Koreanets for themselves.

One way they tried to do that was by having a little contest: the submitters of restaurant reviews had a chance to win holycrapaniPodtouch!!!

I'd already been thinking about getting some kind of mobile device anyway, so if I could have a chance to get one for free, well, giddyup! I got on that restaurant review board like Tiger Woods on a well-contoured, attractive. . . fairway, and even requested he add some of my faves to the list.

Well, happy to say, after getting my verbosity on and pounding out a whack of reviews, and then writing the webmaster and asking him to add a few more of my favorite restaurants, so I could review them, too, I hammered out as many as I could (meaning six) before the deadline.

I got a message that I'd won the contest, and went down to Itaewon on my night off to collect my prize. It's pretty sweet. I'm pretty proud of myself for having put nothing but productivity programs on it so far -- save that silly lightsaber app that everybody thought was cool two years ago -- Here's the post about the contest from Hi Expat.

It's given me a lot of thoughts about mobile technologies that I'll share with you sometime, and given me a clearer picture of what I want for the next mobile device I buy (gonna need 4g or something: this searching for wifi hotspots thing is cramping my style) but for now, let's leave it at a simple squee over the joy of getting a new toy: I've been playing with it almost nonstop ever since I got it, and it's awesome. Here's me showing off my swag: (from Hi Expat's write-up on the contest)

Now, anyone who gives me free stuff totally gets a write-up on the blog, so let me tell you a bit more about Hi Expat:

Hi Expat is a pretty cool website so far. And I'd say that even if they didn't give me an iPod touch, and writing this post was NOT a precondition of my winning the iPod touch, so's you know - that was never requested, nor even implied. However, I've been looking around Hi Expat, and I had a nice talk with Dan, who just started the site in its current form. His head's in the right space for a guy trying to create something useful for expats online, and he's committed to keeping it "positive and productive" (those were the words he used).

(useful pages include: preparing to move here and places to volunteer in Seoul - if this keeps up, the site's shaping up to be as useful as the Seoul City Blog.)

Along with the job board, Hi Expat has a nifty restaurant review section where you can submit reviews of restaurants listed, and if your restaurant isn't listed, you can request one. It's as easy to use as the mini-review section on Zenkimchi Dining, but because each restaurant is added manually by the site administrator, each review also comes with a little google map of how to find it - extremely useful in a city like Seoul, where street numbers are an afterthought.

I'm happy to see an increase in people setting out to write English blogs that are useful for others coming to Korea - that's heartening to me, as that inherited knowledge about how to have a good time, and where to eat and such is a crucial factor to enjoying life in the ROK. It used to be (back when I first came, and hooker hill was uphill both ways), that the only way you'd hear about those places is if a coworker showed you personally, and you were well-oriented enough to remember how to find it back. Pretty sweet that we're no longer at that point.

I'm going somewhere with this... and the lady outside my window is having a sweet shouting meltdown... but for now, I'll post this about my cool new iPod Touch and say: go visit Hi Expat... and propose my idea for a Korean eating guide on the next post.

By the way, while we're on the "I'm famous" theme, I also just got linked on Korean News Feeds: a total honor.

My Favourite Class

I will write about my favourite class at my school.

I will use very simple English, so my students can read it.

After my father's wedding, and traveling around Canada in July, I came back to Korea. That August, I had all new classes. One was PreEfl: the lowest level.

Pre EFL classes can be fun, if the students are nice. If the students are shy, or something, it can be a really, really hard class.


This class had some older students. Before coming to this school, I taught small children. Most of my students are about age 40 or younger, or they speak English very very well, from living abroad. I thought, "maybe this class will be really hard."

Instead, I met two ladies.

Their names are Betty







And Veronica.






They don't really look like that.

Betty and Veronica are famous characters from a comic book called "Archie". They are best friends. Betty and Veronica are also two ladies in my English class. They have the same names as the girls in the comic, by coincidence.

"Archie" comic books are very popular in North America. Archie is a high school boy, and he likes two girls.


Veronica is beautiful, and her father is rich, but she is also a princess, and she always changes her mind. Some days she likes Archie, but other days, she likes a boy named Reggie, because Reggie has a nice car.




Betty is the sweet, kind girl next door. She is honest and simple, and she loves Archie. She never changes her mind, and Archie loves her, too, but when Veronica calls, Archie forgets about good and faithful Betty.

Archie is a flake. (flake means a person I can't trust)


In my class, Betty is a sweet, generous lady who studies really hard. I know she studies hard because often, when I teach her a phrase or a word, she uses that phrase or word in our class a few days later. That shows that she studies hard at home, after class, too.

She is very impressive.

Betty studies English because her grandchildren live in America, and she wants to talk to them on the phone, and visit them there. I think that is the best reason I ever heard for studying English. I think about Betty's grandchildren, and it is very touching to see her working so hard to improve her English.

Here is a picture of Betty, on the right. Her classmate Christine is on the left. Christine was new last month. She asks good questions.

Veronica is a very sweet, Catholic lady. Her friend Misuk also comes to class (but she was absent the day we took pictures). Veronica is studying English to help her husband with his business. Her husband wants to work with more international clients and partners. Often Veronica helps her husband at the office.

Veronica is very kind, and she always sees a person's good parts. She always has a big smile, and she really appreciates her classmates, her family, and good things in life. Veronica leads a bible study in her apartment block, and she loves talking about the things she likes doing. She has a sister living in Chilliwack, near my old hometown, and she traveled to New York in November, and then she brought her laptop to class, so she could show her pictures to us.

For Lunar New Year, Veronica gave me some delicious rice cakes that she made with her own hands; they were yakshi, my favourite kind.

Here is Veronica, on the left. On the right is Nahyeon.

Nahyeon is a businessman who has taken a break between jobs to study languages. He is studying both English AND Japanese right now, and he works very hard. He is really good at making sentences, once you encourage him to speak. He shares his opinions, and tries really really hard to put his ideas into words. I really respect his hard work.

He is also gracious. Every day, he thanks me for my teaching.

Sometimes, Betty brings me a cup of coffee in the morning, and occasionally, Nahyeon brings in donuts. Christine (sorry I didn't write about her more: I don't know her as well as the others) brought me a tea one day, Veronica brought some rice cakes, and suddenly we had a big snack party in our class: look at all the good things!
I really feel their appreciation for my teaching, and I have known this class for a long time. They are in Level 1 now, and every month I tell my boss, "Don't change this class. I really love this class." I think they say the same to him, because I have had this class for nine months now! They are my favourite class, and I really love them!

There are other students that are not in the pictures. I also really like John and Misuk (she was in the class from the beginning), Alice, and many other students have come and gone (Jamie, Sebastian, Esther, Rory, Laura) but this 9am class is one of my favourite, and I am sure glad I teach them!

It's been a while since we've had a survey on here. . .

So I drank the Heroes kool-aid after all.

I don't have a TV at my house, and don't really miss it, but after seeing a few episodes of the TV series Heroes (which EVERYONE is talking about here in Korea these days) at my friend's house, I bought season one on DVD for cheap.

And, like the X-Men movies, The Bourne Identity, and Jim Carrey's The Mask, the best part of watching a show where people suddenly discover they have superpowers is entertaining the wish-fulfillment fantasy of what would happen if you discovered YOU had superpowers --

A good third of the fun of watching The Bourne Identity series is the daydream that, one day, when somebody threatens YOU, YOU'LL suddenly bust out deadly martial arts and super-spy skills, too; in the movie "The Mask", where the green mask brings out the side of your character that you hide in public, and gives it cartoonish super-powers, and it gives me a ninety-minute-long daydream about what side of ME would come out if I put on that silly mask. Ditto for x-men -- you can fantasize all day about which x-men power would be most fun, most useful, most frightening, and so on.

So in tribute to the TV series Heroes, the survey question is: which superhero power do YOU wish you had?

(and don't say x-ray vision, because then everybody will know you're a perv)

Two rules/qualifiers (just because everybody always says these ones -- like in Korea, you have to say "AFTER your parents, who is your hero?", because otherwise that's all you'll hear):

Don't say Superman's powers, because that's like going to a restaurant and ordering one of everything on the menu. Ditto for saying "Peter Petrelli's [from Heroes] power: the ability to absorb other people's superpowers": that's like saying "If I found a magic lamp I'd wish for a hundred more wishes." -- and kind of defeats the purpose of choosing. EVERYBODY would prefer to have ALL the superpowers, but if you had to pick one, which would it be?

I guess everybody's doing one of these.

For me, in the words of my old Creative Writing bud, Sparkey, 2007 has been kickdonkey awesomepants, friends.

A rundown of reasons for the spring in my step:

1. Girlfriendoseyo: we met in April, we hit it off almost right away, and it just keeps getting better and better. You've heard guarded hints roundabout allusions about her on the blog, but friends, I'm crazy about this woman. We like all the same things, and (______________ insert your own mushy cliche here__________________). It's pretty great.

2. Teaching adults. No more pee fights, tattle-tales, crocodile tears, or insane mothers. Instead, I learn from my students: there are areas where they actually know MORE than me. A lot of areas! I'm actually kind of dumb, except in a few fields.

3. Words - I've written more in this year than probably any three years previously. Seeing as writing professionally is my stated life goal, that's pretty significant.

4. Living downtown - every day living in the downtown is like a people-watcher's festival. And I get to be a tour-guide when my friends come into the downtown.

5. My Colleague/Friends -- I have some friends here who are really cool, including one gentleman who has invited me to his family's house, and who's opened up, despite big differences in age and culture, and really made me feel welcomed and appreciated as a westerner living in Korea.

6. Rosetta Stone - an amazing language study program that's building my vocabulary, my spoken Korean, and (most importantly) my confidence in speaking Korean. It's been a real boon, and I'm really enjoying the noticeable improvement in my Korean ability.

7. Moving into an apartment with no TV. TV sucks.

8. Downtownucopia: the variety and quality of restaurants in the downtown make eating a joyous practice over here in downtown Seoul. discovering that good food is one of my main pleasures in my life was also good -- putting one's finger on the things that makes one happy, sure helps one REMAIN happy. In no particular order, I really love:

-Indian in Jonggak -Blood and Cow Stomach Soup -the Oktoberfest microbrewery -spicy beef-bone stew -california rolls and sushi -beef bone soup (with AMAZING kimchi) -world class dumplings -okonomiyaki -the Moroccan place I just discovered -the funny old lady who's been making pickled garnishes and organic side dishes her entire life -the fat, old Chinese ladies who make dumplings and never smile

(If any of you readers lives in Korea and wants to know where to find these places. . . let me know in the comments section. We'll figure something out.)

9. Living closer to Matt, hiking more often, and generally getting healthier, in large part because of his influence.

10. Blogging as a new, more enlightened, more frequent way of keeping in touch with my loved ones in Canada (and elsewhere), and being able to share a little more detail than you can fit into a bi-monthly, text-only e-mail update.

11. Almost all of the friends I've kept close tabs on back in Canada are doing better now than they were last year -- you know who you are. Yay for you! I'm all squirming with happy for you.

12. Going to Canada in July to see my Dad's wedding, Matt's brother (and my surrogate older brother) Joely's wedding, and all the other people I saw then, too.

13. A MILLION BABIES -- like, everybody I know is having a baby. Except me. It's awesome, and overwhelming, and awesome, and exciting, and awesome.

14. Is a luckier number than thirteen.


the bummers:

Myspace, Facebook, Internet, Blog, Youtube, Collegehumor.com et. al = New Years resolution 1: waste less time on the internet.

With all that good eatin', it's easy to get fat, fast.

I didn't call home enough: I have no landline anymore, so all phones home must be cellulexpensive, plus, I'm a bad son/brother/friend/uncle/grandson/stalker. I just don't do my duty enough.

Thanks God, and everybody else involved, for a fantastic year. I'm glad to be alive, and really happy with my situation these days.

I love you all!

Take care.
Love:
roboseyo

Enough uplifting stuff. . . time for a rant! (or Seasonal Music in December) with a Survey at the End!

First thing:

I like Christmas. I really do. Somehow Christmas makes me think of home, of where I'm from, of who I'm from, more than any other time of year. It's a beautifully spiritual time, if you can hit the right notes, and keep your mind in the right place.

(insert obligatory paragraph about over-commercialized Christmas here -- even the complaining about Christmas has been overdone and is now clicheed.)

I can avert my eyes from the "shop shop shop" ads, or at least simply enjoy the christmassy feeling that the combination of the colours red, white, and green bring to my emotional memory, and not read the words.

But what I can't do, guy-sensitive-to-music that I am, is shut my ears from hearing Christmas music every flippin' place I go.

And dear readers, some of that Christmas music has got to go.

Now, you will notice this post has many embedded videos. The one introduced as a Tom Waits video, and the very last one are the two best, so if you're impatient, watch them and skip the rest. Be warned, many of the others are there to serve as examples of terrible Christmas music. I put them up for the same reason people look at boogers after they pick them, and slow down for car crashes: some people just want to know, even (or especially) when somebody says, "You don't want to know. Really." And some of the music (I chose the videos for their music -- ignore the images if you can) is a musical car crash. I'll even put a car crash warning on them, just so you can skip them if you don't like the smell of putrescence. And if you DO like putrescence. . . this post should be a proper hall of masochistic wonders for you!

For the music overkill. . . as when I posted a bunch of poetry in a previous blog, if you don't like it, skip it!


(car wreck warning: worst. Christmas. song. ever. Wham!)


See, most mediocre, half-hearted pop-songs clutter up the airwaves for a little while, and then have the consideration to vanish, as their limited shelf/radio-life expires. Even if you REALLY hate the latest steaming pile of Black-Eyed-Peas, it'll go away in about three months. That's not to say it hasn't already overstayed its welcome, but at least it's gone now.

Not so Christmas music. EVERY DECEMBER, radio programmers dig up, and warm over all the crappy songs from Christmas past, trotting dead horses back out and into radio rotation, so that we're STILL listening to George Michael whine about "Last Christmas" when by now, it's been twenty-four Christmases since he gave you his heart, and you're still glad you gave it away, and it's been twenty-three Christmases since his mopey, sloppily written, limpidly sung song should have ceased forever to grate on shop customers' ears. Instead, here in Korea, modern pop bands are COVERING it, just so I hear it even MORE often!

Rain: the biggest male popstar in Korea. Put me out of my misery now! (SUPER MEGA TRAIN-WRECK WARNING)

whew! at least it was short.


Now to be fair, I recognize that it's hard to make a good Christmas song --

Your choices are these:

Option 1. write your own song.

(car wreck warning: bryan adams, riffing on the tired old "Christmas makes us better people" theme)


In which case, your own songwriting skills are on a playlist right before, or after, some Christmas classic, and bud, I don't care how underrated a songwriter Bryan Adams might be. . . his junky Christmas anthem pales next to the majesty of "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing."

From Paul McCartney, this is my submission for the worst track any Beatle ever recorded, and that INCLUDES the plastic ono band. . . but every Christmas, it comes back again.

(car wreck warning: wonderful christmas time)

The images in the video make me smile--"Hey everybody! Even though the Beatles broke up, I'm still using drugs. . . see?"


Making a Christmas song, option 2:

Do a version of a Christmas classic.

You have a better chance of success here, except that with all the good ones, somebody's already done it better.

Ella Fitzgerald sang "Baby, it's Cold Outside" with Louis Jordan . . . that means Avril Lavigne, Michael Buble, Jack Johnson, Fergie, and any band assembled by a producer rather than by the musicians finding each other, should leave it alone. Really. Why bother trying.

(listen to the words: it's the only song in the world that makes date-rape sound charming and nostalgic, if you listen to it cynically enough)



Annie Lennox did Winter Wonderland really well (there's a link to her version later). . . this version makes me want to cancel Christmas altogether, hide my head under a pillow, and hibernate until February.

(Big Car Wreck warning. This clip is like using a corkscrew instead of a q-tip. Really, don't watch more than the first fifteen seconds of this one. I'm ashamed of my culture right now. No Joke. this is the worst video clip in the entire post. in case you doubt me, let me just say: Ozzy Osbourne/Jessica Simpson duet. Still doubt me? I dare you to press play!)

(Warning: every time someone plays this clip in its entirety, an angel loses its wings.)

(As my sister's friend says, "You make baby Jesus cry.")


Making a Christmas Song: Option 3 (if you can pull it off): make an amazing Christmas song that gets overplayed until people hate it anyway.

Dear Mariah Carey:
Thanks for this one! It's AWESOME

Awesome!
(the first 435 times)


Dear radio programmers who play "All I Want For Christmas Is You" practically on repeat every December: please? stop? You all agreed to take "Crazy" off the air before people got sick of it -- can we now give Mariah the Gnarls Barkley treatment, before you start losing listeners through death by immolation? Yeah, it's rare that an actually talented artist makes a Christmas album at the top of her game. . . but every five minutes I'm hearing "All I Want For Christmas. . . " either the Mariah version, or the cover from the "Love Actually" soundtrack. At some point, thanks to the "shuffle" function on CD players, I'm going to hear them back-to-back, and I heard that if that's followed by back-to-back versions of "Last Christmas" by Wham! and then by the K-Popstar Rain, every Starbucks in Korea will implode.

The great Christmas songs get played more often than the crappy ones, so we even tire of them, sadly. (Sorry, Bing Crosby. The song's great, but I've just overdosed on it. All respect to you, but I never want to hear "White Christmas" again.)


So that's the quandary of Christmas music. Either there are a zillion other versions (probably by better musicians), or your song's not gonna hold water next to the other Christmas classics, or it's gonna get so overplayed we're sick of it anyway--it just takes us three years instead of one week.


At the root of the problem, or at least a major part of it, is this:

Most Christmas albums are basically Christmas-spending-spree cash-ins from artists who are either getting old and running out of fresh ideas, or whose appeal will fade quickly (often due to lack of true talent), and need to capitalize before they become irrelevant, or who were all about the money anyway, right from the start. For proof, go to a used CD shop and see how many "where are they now" bands have numerous copies of their Christmas Album on the shelves, where nobody's buying them.

These cynical money-grubbing artists are hilariously parodied here in "Love Actually" by the fictional artist "Billy Mack" -- THIS makes me laugh, because it's so true.

(Car wreck. . . no, train wreck. . . no, mid-air-plane collision. . . this is the Titanic of bad music videos. . . but it's funny, and a parody. . . does that make it ok? I especially like the interview clips before and after the actual song, and the naughty elves with stripper poles.)

help us all! at least they're not serious, like Ozzy Osbourne and Jessica Simpson up above.

And so it is that bad artists make most of the Christmas music out there.

Conversely, it is only rarely that a really great artist does a really interesting take on Christmas. The artists who could make a really interesting Christmas album are rarely the ones who actually DO make Christmas music, because actual artists aren't usually into cash-grabs. I've been hearing an Aimee Mann Christmas song lately at Starbucks (I can't find it to post it), and that's nice. . . I think Tom Waits would make the best Christmas album ever, but he's too much of an artist to make one, the same way I think Robert Redford is the Hollywood star who'd make the best U.S. President. . . for precisely the reasons he would never run for president.

Come on, Tom, give us some more. (Tom Waits: Christmas Card From a Hooker In Minneapolis) -- Neko Case sings a gorgeous version of this song, too, but it never gets on the radio, or on YouTube.

This, THIS is good. Sad, funny, tender, Tom Waits.


So my Christmas wish is that we could retire some of that Christmas dreck that's been recycled for too many years. Please? We could also make a rule that radio stations and shops can only play a Christmas song a maximum of three times (maximum four) per twenty-four hours, so that we don't get sick of Bing's White Christmas, and Annie Lennox's "Winter Wonderland," which I still like. . . barely.

(embedding disabled by request, so you have to follow the link to hear the song)

In a world of MP3 CD's, there's just no excuse anymore for playing "Merry Christmas" by Mariah Carey on repeat for eight hours a day in your coffee shop. Really, none. Radio programmers: It's OK to play just regular, nice music in December -- mix it up a bit! Then we can enjoy the Christmas music when it DOES come on, instead of sighing and gritting our teeth until January.

(It's a pretty poor reflection on the caliber of Christmas music that I'm actually GLAD no other holidays have special pop-songs for them -- but then again, that's not a bad business idea. Do you think there'd be a market for crappy Thanksgiving albums? What about crappy Valentine's Day music? I'm SURE if you made a bad Independence Day album, Americans would buy it. This might be my million-dollar idea!)

Before I go: here are some more Christmas songs I DO like if I don't hear them too often, and the last one is my favourite Christmas recording ever -- if you only listen to one of these songs, make it that one (if two, add the Tom Waits one above).

Joni Mitchell


Jackson 5 (and most of A Motown Christmas)


(Most of Christmas With the Rat Pack is pretty good, too -- Sinatra, Dean Martin, Davis Jr. and co. know how to handle a classic Christmas tune).

This, by Sarah McLachlan, is not about Christmas, but it's about Winter. I'd love to hear this at Starbucks as I sip my maquillado.


And I especially love this one. One of the most beautiful voices I know (Stevie Nicks: you've heard her before on this blog), matched with what I would argue to be the most beautiful melody ever penned. Shimmering! (As the Wizard of Oz would say, "Pay no attention to the early '80s hair! I am the great and powerful OZ!")



And now, it's survey time. . . which songs need to be retired, in your opinion? (see above: also, Boney M)

Which artists need to make a Christmas album? (I humbly submit Alicia Keys and Tom Waits)

(PS: Blood On The Tracks Era Bob Dylan would have made an absolute wonder of a Christmas album, too. Not anymore though.)

Which Christmas music needs to be played more? (did you know Sufjan Stevens has a Christmas Album or two out?)

And what are your favourite Christmas recordings (after Handel's Messiah)?

And my favourite Christmas songs:

Silent Night (the one melody I really never tire of)
Hark The Herald Angels Sing
The First Noel
O Holy Night (in moderation, and sung tastefully)
Angels We Have Heard on High
Joy To The World

Love'em.

Bud, holy cow!

I just went to the Seoul Museum of Art, and saw Vincent Van Gogh. This guy...

you know the difference between looking at pictures of your friend, and actually sitting down and chatting -- you know the way NOBODY gets your vacation photos the way you do, just because bud, the food looks great in the picture, but they didn't get to eat it, and you did.

Well, dear readers, art is like that too. I didn't actually see Vincent VanGogh. He died. Quite a while ago, now. But if you think these pictures are impressive -- wow! You really gotta see them in person. The paint on the canvas, the little knots of colour, the texture that jumps out at you -- it's like the difference between a photo album and a person (which makes sense, but still didn't really click until I saw these in person).


This one was there. Girlfriendoseyo disagrees with me, but I think Van Gogh was overwhelmed by the sun. The sun seems so close here -- it strikes me even as being accusing. The sun almost totally dominates just about every painting where it appears in Van Gogh's work. The field is so mundane next to that glaring eye. You can barely even see the birds eating the sower's seeds -- they're totally irrelevant next to that sun.

I stared at this one for about three minutes without blinking. I don't know how, but Vincent got to me, like a fisher with his hook, he got a hold of something in me.


This next one wasn't in the exhibit, but you can see here, too, Van Gogh's feeling about the sky. I said to Girlfriendoseyo today -- Raphael's or Vermeer's paintings are so perfect, so realistic, it's like they're just seeing. Picasso's paintings are so intuitive, so emotional, it's like they're just feeling. Van Gogh sees and feels. It's amazing how raw and visceral these paintings are in person.


This one WAS in the exhibit, and Girlfriendoseyo and I were both totally gobsmacked. I just can not convey to you how powerful this painting is in person. I really can't. Even if you eat the computer screen where the painting is displayed, you won't be as deeply impressed by it as we were. Go, seek it out, and see it yourself.


This next painting was there too, the only of his self portraits (I think).

This one broke my heart, and also caught hold of me for several minutes: every line said, "dude, I've lived a f***ing rough life." He died at age 37, but this, one of his early paintings, already looks about fifty.


Everybody loves these next three. . . they weren't at the exhibit, but they might have been too much for me if they were. My old roomie Anthony once told me the story of his buddy, the self-proclaimed "biggest Bjork fan in the world", who, when he got the chance to see Bjork perform live, ended up having to leave the auditorium after the first few songs, completely overwhelmed with the power of his experience. I scoffed at the story then, and called dude an idiot for flinching away from a potential high-point in his life. . . but now I think I might understand a bit.

Considering how these three are still amazing, gorgeous, and fresh to me, even though they pop up of every tea room wall, on every Starbucks mug, in every poster-shop window. . . to actually see them in person, to have their impact amplified that much -- I might have to look away for a while, too, before staring into the sun like that.



Dear Lord, the man's night skies were breathtaking!

This one WAS there. In person, it's almost a different painting entirely.

And I wish I could explain what he does with flowers. . . but there's just no way. (This is why people write poems, I suppose.)


This wasn't at the exhibit, but again, look how he just lays his soul bare in the skies. The indoor still life paintings' backgrounds were totally flat and dull, but this Vincent fellow, he had some kind of a thing about skies.

Thanks to him, now I do, too.


Wasn't at the exhibit, but just -- wow. Just wow.


I love painters.
The German poet Rilke (my personal poetry hero) wrote, in the First Duino Elegy

"already the knowing animals are aware
that we are not really at home in our interpreted world"

And this is why artists draw -- because there doesn't have to be a story, or a meaning, or anything but a field and a sky. . . but that field, and that sky -- WOW!

Here it is! Be amazed!

We're right back to that again, aren't we? Can't that sometimes be enough? Can't that sometimes be the entire end and purpose of some art? As John Keats said,
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,--that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

But with words, Keats had to say beauty is truth. These painters just show something beautiful, and they don't even have to add a single layer of interpretation if they don't want to, and they can just leave it at "here it is. be amazed."

(Girl With a Pearl Earring, by another Dutch guy who was pretty good: Vermeer. Here it is. It's beautiful. Be amazed.)

Yeah, sometimes there's other stuff in there, too. . . but there doesn't have to be. With writing, it's almost impossible not to add in a little pontification, a little theme or interpretation or explanation -- it's why I get bummed every time I read Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey -- he starts off with a "here it is. be amazed" and then starts adding other stuff. Sometimes in other poems, he got it right, got it pure, but often he was so busy explaining the perfection of his moments, or describing his own feelings, that he clouds the beauty with too many traces of his own voice -- kind of like an amazing photograph with a text line across the middle of the composition saying, "taken on a fuji finepix E550"

For your benefit, I've created a visual representation of what I mean. Which of these pictures would you rather have on your wall?




Here's a Picasso painting I talked about in a previous post.

I love about Picasso that he stripped away everything in his paintings except the things he decided were important for that particular painting.

Form? Not needed.
Proportion? Why?
Perspective? Does it serve the painting's main theme?
Conventional Placement Of Body Parts? Let's talk about that again later.

But what he DID keep in his painting, distorted, exaggerated, or rearranged for proper emphasis, maintained the exact emotional content of his subject, even when the recognizable form was long gone, and so, even though you wouldn't recognize her to pass her on the street, you FEEL this woman crying (the painting is named "La Femme Qui Pleure" - the woman who cries), more (or at least as) clearly and authentically than/as a hundred photos of women actually crying.


The other thing I love love love about Picasso is his face. Look at his eyes. Those are eyes that have been trained, for an entire lifetime, to see into the heart of things, and find wonder there. "It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child." That he not only learned how to SEE the world that way, but was also skilled or intuitive enough to translate what he saw onto canvas is as much a miracle as the way Mozart heard the music perfectly in his head, or the way Beethoven composed the Ninth Symphony while stone-deaf, or the way John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison managed to be born in the same city, in the same era, and meet each other.

Even when he's very old, you still see a child in his eyes. You see a mind still open. Still dancing.

That kind of wise simplicity appears from time to time, in somebody's eyes. . . not even in every artist, though. My favourite poet, Rainer Maria Rilke, has a sharper edge in his eyes.

but it doesn't surprise me that someone who uses words (which are basically boxes, categories, and judgements impressed upon the things that actually reach one's senses) would have a sharper edge than someone who uses colours and shapes to lay bare his soul.



Would you believe that behind those eyes lies one of the finest religious-scholarly minds on the planet?

I hope, when I'm an old man, I have eyes as encompassing, innocent, and simple, as that.

But more than that, I hope they look that way because I've worked my whole life to see the world simply and wonderfully (wonderful meaning full of wonder, of course), and maybe even that I've been clever enough to transmit some of that tight-packed wonder into some books that other people can read.

How long does it take to write a poem like Rilke, or paint a painting like Picasso, or a story like JD Salinger?

A few hours, or a few days, or a few months. . . and an entire lifetime, of course.

with my family, and the friends I've loved in my short life I have had so many people I've deeply cared for

(the pictures are explained at the end of the post.)




Before I get into that:

a thought on music: the measure of a great songwriter, I think, is that other artists can take the song and do something interesting with it. (submitted for consideration: Bob Dylan songs, Beatles songs have been covered meaningfully [or otherwise] by so many artists. See also: jazz standards, where any artist can give it their own take. If your song has been covered by a jazz artist [or by more than one] you can console yourself that it's pretty darn well-written.)



but

the measure of a great musician, I realized today, is that people don't dare cover the song, because they know they could never measure up to the standard set by the original (or at least THE version) -- Every artist who sings "Hallelujah" will be measured against Jeff Buckley, every artist who sings "Watchtower" will be measured against Jimi Hendrix. Some bands just never have, like, ANY of their songs remade, because their musical identity is so unique that no artist could measure up. Really, who's gonna cover a Led Zeppelin song? You'll never top them, so why bother trying, unless you take it in such a different direction that it's barely the same song anymore, or only do it live, where Zep is sure to fire up a crowd? Even in jazz -- "My Funny Valentine" isn't done much anymore, because that's Chet's song, and "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" is cute, but you won't be as cute as Louis and Ella. Mark of a musician.



Next:

a Roboseyo observation on life:
Problem is, the worst 1% of a demographic is usually also the loudest.




OK then. Blog soundtrack time: hit play, and then read.



I don't know if this blog actually qualifies as a public forum. . . though theoretically it is, much in the same way you can hold up a sign on a street corner and people can choose to read it or not. . . maybe this blog is more like holding up a sign in an alley at night, I'm not sure how many people come here, really . . . nor whether anybody other than folks who used to be on my personal mailing list still care, but. . .




In going through my old e-mails from the year before, and then the year after Mom died (no small task: over 500 pages just from the five I e-mailed the MOST during that time) I've been struck, staggered, and humbled, by the amazing quality of friends I have.



The thoughts and emotions shared during that time were pretty raw, I was basically bleeding through e-mail a bunch of the time, and my friends (in descending order of number of pages sent back and forth) Tamie, Anna, Melissa, Matt and (before we broke up) Exgirlfriendoseyo really worked like a life buoy (or maybe a tourniquet) for me.





So here are some specific things I'm thankful for, concerning each of these friends:

(in descending order of pages)





Tamie - was my grief buddy. We were peripheral friends during University, but she stayed on my e-mailing list, and then suddenly, when Exgirlfriendoseyo and I broke up, she sent a letter so gentle and compassionate that we've since become good friends. We connected deeply and instantly for several reasons, but you'll just have to ask HER what they are, for privacy reasons and such. Our e-mail correspondence was extensive, and traced a lot of changes in my character and faith, as they were happening. Tamie is wise, gentle, and compassionate. She doesn't give unsolicited advice, or answer without thinking deeply first. She was really diligent in speaking with compassion and without judgment, and by doing that, gave me a space where I could poke around at myself, during a time when I really didn't like being in my own company. Thanks, Tamie!

(also, for a while I think Tamie and Mel were the only ones actually reading my blog. . .)

(it's American thanksgiving, so I guess I can get away with this.)



Anna - my friendship with Anna was one of those "friendship least likely to happen" situations after university ended, but despite (or maybe because of) a knotty beginning, we became good friends later. She lives in my brother's hometown, and she has brown eyes full of wisdom, and she's my age, but she's still the kind of person who listens to birds, and goes outside to look at the frost on the grass in the streetlights, when it shines like diamonds. Like Tamie, our lives followed a somewhat similar arc in certain respects over the last while, and between conversations and e-mails, she's been a good travel companion through some rough patches.




Melissa - didn't get as many pages of e-mail, but it's not because I love her less (it's because we'd meet while I was in Canada, and back in Korea, I phoned her more - hard as that is to believe, considering how sporadic my calling habits are). If I had to be stuck on a desert island with one person, I'd have to choose Jesus, because then we could walk on water back to the mainland (and chat along the way) but if I got to pick three people, it'd be Matt, Dan, and Mel.


One of the things I love about Mel is that she'd beg me to choose someone else so that she could remain with her wonderful husband and her amazing two little boys (you can go read about them on her blog, which is linked on the side here). Mel makes me laugh beyond all reason, and she's been my most loyal university friend. Our friendship has had some amazing give-and-take, and I'm so grateful to have her around. She's extremely smart (but never arrogant), and she takes no crap from me, and chops me back down to size if I get too preposterous, at the same time praising me when I do well. She's one of those rare friends who can give a person the truth honestly, but also kindly enough for a person to really learn something, and maybe become a better person. She has an amazing family, and she needs support right now because her husband is far away in RCMP boot camp, so you should go put encouraging comments on her blog. She's also a badass paramedic, and you can read some of the blood-and-guts stories on her blog.




Soundtrack 2: press play when the other one ends, then scroll down and ignore the images that run as the music plays. Seriously, PLEASE scroll down so you can't see the images that play. They're really cheesy.

The song's "Call it Off" by Tegan and Sara. They're Canadian, and great.

The original version vanished, but this live version has a great crowd singalong.

Matt - Again, more that passed between us was conversation than e-mail. While I was in Canada, with Mom, he got the concentrated stuff, and the korea-related stuff, but once I returned to Korea, well, I might have made it without his support, but it would have been a much rougher, slower go, and I might be a different person than I am now. Matt's the most loyal friend, and the best friend, I've met since university, and he's influenced me more than probably anybody outside my immediate family.




Matt's smart but not arrogant, gentle but tough, honest and tactical. He, like Mel, will call me out if I'm out of line (I really appreciate people who do that), but, like Mel, when he does, it comes from a place of compassion, of knowing me well, and knowing what's important to me (sometimes I get called out by people who misunderstand me or my situation, or who press their values onto my life. . . then it's more of a "thanks for your opinion" than a "I never noticed that before. . . I'll adjust accordingly" as it has usually been with Melissa and Matt. He's funny and he keeps me light-hearted when I need it, and he's ready for a sauna, a poetry reading, a night of revelry, or a mountain-climb, as suits the situation. I love him to pieces. His wife Heyjin is so amazing she, like Melissa's family, really deserves a post of her own, so for now I'll say, I'm glad and grateful for my friendship with her.



Finally, Exgirlfriendoseyo:

Before things fell apart on my return to Korea, she was a good e-mail pal, and she got a lot of the day-to-day updates on Mom's condition. I'm glad she was in Korea waiting for me, because having someone to look forward to sure makes a difficult time like watching your mom die a little more manageable. Exgirlfriendoseyo was (and probably remains, for all I know) a sweet-hearted woman. She's caring and lovable and I'm glad I met her. We weren't quite ready to go the distance together, but I learned a lot about loving from her, and then I learned a lot about grieving from losing her, and for that, I ought to be grateful.




There's a song I wanted to have as the soundtrack for this post: Red Cave, by Yeasayer ends with the repeated lyric, "I'm so blessed to have a good time with my family, and the friends I've loved in my short life I have had so many people I've deeply cared for" -- which sounds nice, but it's miles better set in the rest of the song.





At some point in the future, some cut-and-pastes from the e-mails that passed between me and those five (e-mailing was basically my version of therapy for those two years, along with a few other habits and activities), might appear on this blog. They might not. It depends on the context where they seem most appropriately used.





There are a lot of other people who have been there for me through this time -- shout out to my brothers and sisters and my dad, of course, as well as some other e-pals and coworkers, and the people pictured throughout this post. I love you all and I'm so glad you're in my life. I haven't attached names because I don't necessarily have permission, per se, to name these people on my blog, but you've meant a lot to me. But the five mentioned that bore the lion's share of my grief (certainly my e-grief), and as I look through the old e-mail records, I'm wildly, ridiculously grateful they (and the rest of you) were around when I needed them.

Thanks, eh?





all the love in the world:

rob



(Actually, when I think about it again, maybe the one person I'd choose to be stuck on a desert island with is Dick Cheney, so he couldn't f*** up the world any more than he already has. . . but that's another post entirely)





(Morning has broken, by Cat Stevens)