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Jul
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Awesome! It's the Apocalypse. - I Love Money

Fuck you, VH1.

I would take Matchbox Twenty videos 24-7 over the disrespectful, offensive, base, vile, insincere, indecent, despicable and disgusting pile of putrid trash, I Love Money.

How dare you insult my intelligence, as well as, humanity’s?

Yeah, we get it.  These reality show contestants are attention-starved, depraved, greedy and seem to have no qualms about making complete fools of themselves.  It’s mindless entertainment to enjoy during the summertime.

But it’s more than that.  It’s mockery.  Not just of the contestants, but of the viewers.  If people are stupid enough to watch Flavor of Love, I Love New York and Rock of Love, they’re stupid enough to watch this.  Don’t deny it.  You’re a predator.  We’re the prey.

Now usually, when I write this column, it’s a bit of a joke.  “Oh look, Eddie Murphy in Eddie Murphy.”  “The MTV Movie Awards exist solely for shameless self-promotion.”  “Denise Richards is a bitch.”  Hahaha, the world is going to hell.  That joke isn’t funny anymore.  Not with the deplorable I Love Money.  The world is rotting and you are partially responsible VH1.  You immoral asshole.

I may sound fairly self-righteous with this rant.  Who am I to judge what is moral and immoral?  Especially when it’s a “harmless” television show?  I may be preaching to the choir.  Here I am bickering about a widely established truth: Reality TV is horrible.  And I may sound a bit hypocritical.  I did enjoy Rock of Love 2 after all.  But I am a reasonable human being.  Because of this simple fact, I can no longer sit back while I Love Money slowly lobotomizes its viewers.

You’re taking advantage of people, VH1.  When you’re in the position that you’re in, a cable television channel with millions of viewers, you should show at least a sliver of dignity and virtue.  Yes, you could broadcast a reality show about the most detestable contestants from previous reality shows, mocking them and the viewers.  But should you?  Is that really the right thing to do?

“Just don’t watch it.”

That argument doesn’t work.  If a man was being robbed and beaten would I just turn away?  No.  This is wrong and I’m going to say so.

“There are worse things in the world that we should be worrying about.”

Yes, there are and we should be trying to solve them.  But these things are much more difficult to resolve.  This isn’t.  All you have to do, VH1, is run some video hits instead of this show.

“I’m mad as hell and i’m not going to take this anymore!”

Awesome! It’s the Apocalypse.

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Jul
1st
Tue
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On the first of the month, every month, every year, without fail, this song pops into my head.  As soon as the date registers in my mind, via memory, or after looking at a calendar, clock, or cell phone, it’s “Wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, it’s the first of the month/So get up, get up, get up, get up, get up, cash your checks and come on.”

I was never a fan of Bone Thugs N Harmony.  I enjoy this song and “Look into My Eyes” but if you were to ask me what the lyrics are to these songs, other than the choruses, I would just make up some shit and say it rapidly with a mellow, nasal tone.  Plus, I hate “Tha Crossroads”.  It’s trying to be this touching ballad for the fallen but it comes across as cheesy and laughable due to the heavy-handed lyrics and video, and those goofy, nasal tones.

“1st of tha Month” is good clean fun.  It’s a Snoop/G-Funk-wannabe, via Cleveland, Ohio, about getting a monthly welfare check and then celebrating by drinking and smoking “blunt after blunt of this skunk”.  Like I said, good, clean fun.  The kind you don’t mind revisiting on the first of the month.  Every month.  Every year.  Till Judgment comes for you.

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Jun
30th
Mon
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Jun
29th
Sun
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Talk Talk - “New Grass”

After the “Ascension” and the “Flood” it seems like you’ve finally been “Lifted up”.  Brushed drums, pulsating organs and an ethereal guitar line welcome you.  “Reflective in returning love you sing”.  The mood is at once somber, heartbreaking and exuberant.   You stand in the cool grass waiting.  “They’ll come/They come”.

-From This Album Could Change Your Life

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Jun
28th
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Talk Talk - “After the Flood”

Suddenly the storm of “Ascension” ends.  The unrelenting bedlam of one roaring guitar chord stops and all is silent.  Like black thunder clouds dissolving instantaneously to reveal the serene blue sky.  Out of the calm, a gentle piano figure plays, which seems to end before it begins, followed by a humming bass and whirring organs.  A groove materializes and the church organs’ melody arises.  The anxiety you felt about another tempest is dismissed by a peacefulness.  You blissfully become aware of yourself and your surroundings.  Even when guitars emit jagged, sawing sounds like old modems wiring messages.  The flood is over and you wait as the water recedes.

-From This Album Could Change Your Life

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Jun
27th
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Talk Talk - “Ascension Day”

Track two on Laughing Stock is the most immediate on the album. It starts off with a steady jazz beat and an upright bass line that merge into a loose groove. The guitar hovers around innocently at first but then grows wild and agitated. It seems like a storm is about to hit when it suddenly breaks and the voice of Mark Hollis emerges, assured and ready to guide you along like Virgil did for Dante in The Inferno. But we’re ascending not descending. Though it’s hard to tell when he says lines like “Bet I’ll be damned”, “Kill the bed I’ll burn on Judgement Day” and “Dealt my hell I’ve dealt my months of May”. It appears that rising to the heights of the divine isn’t all that easy. The guitar, which has been rising and falling through out, grows even wilder at the end, reinforcing the difficulty of the climb, building up into an omnipotent crescendo just before—-

-From This Album Could Change Your Life

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This Album Could Change Your Life: Talk Talk - Laughing Stock

In the Book of Exodus, the second book of the Old Testament and the Torah, Moses, while herding the flocks of his father-in-law on Mount Horeb, came across a burning bush.  The burning bush began to speak to Moses and revealed itself to be God (a/k/a Yahweh, a/k/a I am that I am).  God tells Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt and gives him supernatural powers to do so.  Some of those powers include changing his staff into a snake and turning water into blood.  Moses then returns to Egypt, tells the Pharaoh what God wants and what will happen if he refuses, showing off a few of these powers.  The Pharaoh refuses and a series of plagues befall Egypt until the Pharaoh is forced to release the Israelites.

Moses leads the Israelites out of Egypt to Mount Sinai.  There, they agree to be his people.  Shortly after, God arrives a top the mountain and Moses ascends it to receive the Ten Commandments.

Now whether or not this occurred in the Bible or the Torah, I’m not sure, but I am sure that it occurred in the film The Ten Commandments.  When Moses returns from Mount Horeb, after speaking with God as the burning bush, his hair has gone gray.

———-

Last summer, after reading yet another laudatory piece about the later work of British New Wave-turned-Post Rock group Talk Talk, specifically Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock, I could no longer contain my curiosity and purchased a copy of Laughing Stock.

At this point, I had only heard some of their earlier New Wave/Synth Pop work, like the singles “Talk Talk” and “It’s My Life”.  Not enough to have a specific sound association with the group.  I also had never really gotten into other acts deemed “Post Rock”.  Slint, Tortoise, Mogwai and God Speed You Black Emperor! were all bands I’d heard of but hadn’t actually listened to except for Slint’s Spiderland, which I had heard a couple of years prior.  Parts of Spiderland I found interesting, but they were not enough to hold me.  Therefore, my ideas of what to expect to hear on Laughing Stock were fairly limited.

The first plays of the album happened while at work.  I listened to it in its entirety, uninterrupted.  I was mystified.  I had never heard anything like it before.  At the time, I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.  However unsure I felt about it, I couldn’t deny that there was something drawing me back into it.  So I listened again and again.

In the following days, as the album’s beauty and power began to grow on me, I noticed a change in my appearance.  My hair was turning gray.  I had noticed a few here and there in the past couple of years but now there appeared to be quite a few more.  While this was happening last summer, I was 25 going on 26.  Fairly young to be going gray.  The more I thought about it, the more I began to think that Laughing Stock was responsible.

———-

The album, the band’s last, was released in 1991.  Like many great works of art, it was ignored upon its release and did not become important and influential until years later.  It’s understandable.  Here was an album experimenting with various genres (Jazz, Ambient, Rock, a little Classic), some of which weren’t popular at the time, lyrics filled with religious imagery and containing an atmosphere that could be moody, ethereal and penetrating within a single song.  It wasn’t a light album, or something to make you dance, as you could say about some of their earlier work.  Laughing Stock was after your soul.  Though not in an evil way.

Laughing Stock is a spiritual work.  It wants to elevate and enlighten your soul.  You sense this overall, not strictly due to the religious imagery in the lyrics.  Because of the way Mark Hollis sings, sometimes in a mumble, sometimes in a cry, sometimes in tongues, you cannot make out much of the words anyway.  Not to say that they are unimportant or that Hollis’ voice is.  Hollis’ voice is an essential piece of the album.  The purity of his vocals, which can move from plaintive to weary to exultant tones, again, within one song, are the listener’s guide.  On “New Grass”, for example, they ache and waver as Hollis channels the message for us to decode.

If Hollis’ vocals speak to the mind, the music, mostly composed by Hollis and producer/multi-instrumentalist Tim Friese-Greene, speaks to the soul and in its own language.  Because of the experimental blend of genres, there are myriad sounds within the album.  There are grooves that seem to heal as they move through the body.  Bursts of noise that startle and frighten.  Heavenly flutters of strings that calm.  Ambient breaks like open fields.  While you listen, you feel these sounds emotionally.  At times these emotions created by the music are too much to take.  You feel immense joy during some tracks and deep sadness in others.  Maybe this is another reason why it took so long for the album to be praised.  The passion, beauty, emotion and power are extremely strong.  Sometimes it hurts to listen to this album.

I’ve never heard anything like it.  If I had to compare it to anything else, it would be Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks.  Like Stock, Weeks is experimental, using Jazz and improvisation heavily, and deeply spiritual.  There’s a purity, a magic and a metaphysical search in both of these albums.  The differences are in the improvisational aspect and the lyrical subject matter.  Morrison is providing vivid portraits of characters while Hollis’ are simpler, more primal mantras and incantations of rites.  One is not better than the other, they’re just dealing in different aspects of the human condition.

———-

While I listened to this album repeatedly last summer, more of my brown hair began to turn gray.  Was Laughing Stock really responsible?  Probably not.  It’s most likely an hereditary trait from my mother’s side of the family.  But I brought up Moses before the burning bush for a reason.  To me, Talk Talk’s Laughing Stock is like the sound of God.  It’s heavenly, it’s pure, it’s difficult, it’s beautiful.  With every listen, no matter how I am feeling before hand, it changes me.  Is it my favorite album?  I don’t know.  It’s hard for me to even consider along side other works.  It’s hard for me to even consider it music, actually.  It feels like more than that.  These are lofty claims, I know, but to me, they’re the truth.  I will post three of the tracks from the album, in the next three days, for you to decide for yourself.  They may convert you or they may not.  Just give it a chance.  This album could change your life.

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Jun
26th
Thu
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Quick Judgements - Final Round

Welcome back, America!

It is time for the Final Round of today’s Quick Judgements!

As in the previous rounds, we have a topic that the players must make a judgement upon. But this is the Final Round, so the players can only give a one word judgement on the topic, which is eligible for up to 50 points.

To remind everyone, here’s the prize: Today’s Quick Judgements winner will get to be an honorary talking head on next week’s episode of the popular VH1 pop culture show, Best Week Ever!

Dusty? Leslie? Joe?

Are you ready to make…The Final Judgement?

Dusty: Ready as I’ll ever be.

Leslie: Let’s judge!

Joe: Ready to go.

Alright, players.

The Final Topic:

Andy Warhol!

Players? Your Final Judgements?

Dusty: Artist.

Leslie: Pop.

Joe: Poser.

Dusty…50 points! Leslie…50 points! Joe…50 points!

Which means…Today’s winner is Leslie Klein!

Great judgements, Leslie!

Leslie: Thank you! I just call it as I see it!

Well now you will be able to call it as you see it on VH1’s Best Week Ever! On next week’s episode your judgements will be broadcasted and accepted across America! How does that sound?

Leslie: Sounds wonderful!

I’ll trust your judgement!

That’s all for Quick Judgements!

Before we leave you, here’s the Quick Judgements Quick Quote:

“Judge a person by their questions, rather than their answers.”

That was the French philosopher and writer Voltaire.

Goodnight!

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Quick Judgements - Lightning Round

And we’re back!

Today’s contestants on Quick Judgements have done very well so far!

After Rounds 1 and 2, here’s the score:

Joe’s in the lead with 55 points, followed by Leslie, with 50 points, and Dusty is trailing with 30 points.

Before we start the Lightning Round, let’s inform our players and viewers of the prize!

The winner of today’s Quick Judgements will get to be an honorary talking head on next week’s episode of the popular VH1 pop culture show, Best Week Ever!

Isn’t that just fantastic?!

Time for the Lightning Round!

We’ve doubled the possible points but your answers can only be two words.

Let’s begin!

Topic:

Yankees First Basemen Jason Giambi’s Mustache!

Dusty: Old school.

Leslie: Still ugly.

Joe: No Mattingly.

10 points all!

Topic:

Coldplay’s new album Viva La Vida!

Dusty: Eno help.

Leslie: Great voice.

Joe: “42” ok.

5 points all!

Topic:

Bubbles!

Dusty: …

Leslie: …

Joe: …

Time!  0 points all!

Topic:

10,000 BC on DVD!

Dusty: Who cares?

Leslie: What?

Joe: Why not?

Dusty, 20 points.  Leslie, 10 points.  Joe, 0 points.

Topic:

proactiv commercials!

Dusty: Too loud.

Leslie: Hornsby royalties.

Joe: Stop yelling.

Dusty and Joe, 10 points.  Leslie 20!

Topic:

Lil Wayne!

Dusty: Hottest MC.

Leslie: So cute!

Joe: “Dr. Carter”.

Dusty and Joe, 20 points!  Leslie, 10 points!

Topic:

The Dark Knight!

Dusty: So awesome.

Leslie: Posthumous Oscar.

Joe: Is it July 18th yet?!

Joe, hahaha, we feel your pain, but no points on that one.  Dusty and Leslie, 20 points!

Topic:

Door knockers!

Dusty: Lost art.

Leslie: No thanks.

Joe: Why not.

Dusty, 20 points!  Joe, 5 points!  Leslie, no points.

Final Topic of the Lightning Round:

The 2008 Olympics in Beijing!

Dusty: Will watch.

Leslie: Smog factory.

Joe: Weather machines.

Leslie and Joe, 20 points!  Dusty, 5 points!

Lightning Round complete!

The new score totals:

Joe has 125 points.  Dusty has 140 points.  Leslie has 145 points.

We’ve got a close game today, America!

Stay tuned or the Final Round!

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