watch the evil black the sky.

To help combat comment-spam, I have begun to close my entries to comments after a few days. So if anyone tries to post a comment to an older entry and it isn’t working, blame those stupid comment spammers! They have to ruin everything.

Right now though I think I’d like to talk about how boring and predictable men have become. Have they always been that way? It seems like they used to be better. Long long ago. Now all we have is just a bunch of guys—a bunch of ordinary guys, walking around talking about all their hot women. It’s so pedestrian and tired, you know? And isn’t there a better description than hot? I freaking hate that word. It’s meaningless. The whole damn world is hot. Gimme a break.

Who the hell up and decided what’s hot and what’s not, and then said “Okay, let us talk of nothing but hotness and sex from now on,” as if it were the most worthy and important subject in the entire universe? Because I hate that guy, whoever he is. He’s ruined everything.

Everyone everywhere is ruining everything and I’m sick of it.

I don’t know what I’m trying to say. Maybe it’s simple. Maybe I wish for more substance. That sounds too easy, but I guess it’s true. But how can that be it? Is substance gone? Is it really that easy?

It would be nice to see someone not following the pack. Someone real, who has more personality and depth than a laddie mag. Someone who isn’t scared to explore that which lies outside the box; someone who isn’t a balls-out horndog, but enjoys a bit of the naughty behind closed doors; someone who doesn’t need to aggrandize their lust and pursuit of girls girls hot hot girls; someone who can forgo the posturing and preening and bluster of the typical heterosexual American male and just relax for a goddamned minute.

Sex has permeated our culture to the extent that it’s no longer sacred or private or revered. It’s commonplace. Sex should never be commonplace! And we’ve desensitized ourselves so much that we constantly have to come up with crazier, dirtier, more extreme ways of displaying and experiencing sex. I’m not saying that every act of sex has to be full of grace and beauty, honor and love, glory and god. But I do believe every sexual act should be one of respect and somewhere along the road we dropped the respect in favor of hot.

I’m rambling. I think I’ve had this exact conversation before on loafe. I know I’ve had it dressed up in different clothes. But it all leads back to the same place.

The sky is a landfill.

This record revue sums up my feelings on this entry:
The Residents - Demons Dance Alone (East Side Digital)
www.e-s-d.com

Like chocolate-covered grasshoppers, raw fish, cow's stomachs, and head cheese, the world's most infamously anonymous band are an acquired taste. Their eyeballs have been hiding from the public eye for 30 years now and their latest falls into the category of their more accessible (i.e., listenable) releases. For starters, they stick to traditional, recognizable song structures. I'd also lump this one in with their theatrical recordings, as it sounds like a soundtrack to some forthcoming musical. They continue to employ female vocalists throughout (as on "The Weatherman," "Caring," and many others), and you'll also find the typically wacky nonsensical marriage of voice and electronics ("Ghost Child"). The whole elaborate hoax could even be experienced as a play called Tongue in three acts: "Loss," "Denial," and "Three Metaphors." And if you think any of this has anything to do with 911, The Residents have you right where they want you.

Their satirical wit hasn't left them, nor their ability to mimic popular icons - e.g., "Honey Bear" is a hysterical Leonard Cohen take-off/put-on that's better than anything on his most recent Ten Songs debacle. "The Car Thief" is a lovely paean to Bongwater during their frequent over-the-top excursions into the nether regions of sanity, while "Neediness" is an irreverent piece of Bonzo-inspired nonsense aimed at the ridiculous sycophantic, brothers-in-arms, "let's all unite against the common enemy" crap that the media has been shoving down our throat since 911.

I should also add that the between-act narration is completely muffled, so if there're any clues hidden therein as to what this whole farce is about, it's completely lost on me. Act Two: Denial is kicked off with the charming "Thundering Skies," one of those wordless vocals pieces that was all the rage back in the '60s and enjoyed a bit of a renaissance during the lounge revival a few years back. "Mickey Macaroni" is pure Zappa/Mothers-inspired lunacy complete with kid vocals that come across like some glee club from hell, a faux guitar solo, and typically asymmetrical song structure. "Betty's Body" finds Swans' Michael Gira donning Frank-n-furter's fishnets for our hero's Rocky Horror voyage around Betty's various body parts.

The remainder is more '80s electronic disco music dancing around Bonzos-meets-Mothers shenanigans with snippets of Ren & Stimpy, "Springtime for Hitler," and other exaggerated Broadway musicals. In other words, if you're a fan, you need it - if not, this won't convince you to seek out their back catalog which East Side has been reissuing with alarming frequency.