Shooting From the Hip- #1

               I’m not afraid to say I watch some pretty vapid television on occasions. I wish I could say that I keep my brain stimulated at all times with the apex of culture but it sometimes needs a break. A snooze button or what have you.

                This is how I stumble onto E! Television (sidenote: I initially forgot the exclamation point. As if they physically can not restrain themselves from how excited they are to tell you about what sandwich Justin Bieber just ate when he was released from jail). E! Television, with the exception of Talk Soup, is the network where stupidity goes to breed and fester. In all of my human years, I have never seen a group of people so obsessed with the most trivial things. This is the network that unleashed the Kardashian plague upon us and gives the skeleton, or whatever you want to call that marionette thing that appears on your screen if you ever happen to stumble past the network, of Joan Rivers a place to reside. In other words, E Network gives Bravo a good name.

                The point of this is not to bash on E! Network. That’s very easy, and ultimately, not really that beneficial to anybody. Everyone knows that E! Network sucks. Why I bring up E! is that during one of my brain hibernations, I happened to stumble upon #RichKids of Beverly Hills. And yes that is the proper name and yes it does contain a # (hurts me even typing this) in the proper title. Inspired by a joke Instagram, oh the irony, which posted pictures of rich kids flaunting their rich lifestyles, it a show that follows around rich kids in Beverly Hills. Yep, that’s basically it. Oh, it has Magic Johnson’s gay son in it too so it has that working for it as well. But basically it’s a show about rich kids taking photos of themselves to post on the internet while cameras follow them around. Do you see the sickness in this? When asked about the concept of the show, the lead blonde, who has a name I don’t remember or care to remember or even care to look up screw journalistic integrity that’s how much I don’t care, about the concept of the show she retorted that “if you don’t share it, it might as well never occurred.”

                Think about that statement for a second. Really let it digest. You good? Now before you get to laughing and joking around about how intoxicatingly stupid this statement sound, maybe you should go check your Instagram and post the picture of the burger you just ordered. Or go on Facebook and create a Facebook movie so everyone knows how vivid your Facebook life has been. Or tweet about the apples at Trader Joe’s. Or write your culinary review on Yelp. Or even read this post on my blog.

                I’m not removing myself from the equation here. I’m just as guilty as everyone else by writing on a blog, or posting the occasional picture of my shoes (more to come by the way), or talking about the music or movies I like. I’m not throwing blame without taking some on myself. But god damn, is this generation a bunch of needy bastards. We need validation in everything we do. We post pictures of food to prove that we ate a really cool restaurant. Actually eating the food and enjoying the experience mentally is not enough. How will everyone know I ate this really cool burger if I DON’T POST IT ON THE INTERNET FOR THEM TO SAVOUR? It is not enough to rub it in everyone’s face how awesome our lives are, but the justification, that were doing this for the greater good of everyone else really sickens me.

                I’m not one for not sharing. Don’t get me wrong. Writing, at its most bare essence, is the art of sharing one’s human experience with another human in hopes of getting a response out of the other human being. Writing as its upmost is a selfish act in which the writer bares themselves, or pisses in the wind, it really depends on your view of literature, in order to gain a reaction. The work itself might have voluminous amounts of relevance to the writer, but if no one reads, no one reacts, than the attempt was futile. So, I’m all for sharing. I’m just not for this quality of over-sharing. When Twitter first surfaced I joked that, finally, we will be able to find out what everyone really thought about their mid-afternoon bowel movement. The cruel part of the joke is now we can tweet about it, post a picture with cool hipstagram effects, and share it with the thousands of our “friends” all over the internet. And we need them to like it or the action has no relevancy at all.

                Ultimately, the human experience has been erased. The aura of the story has been decimated. We have been reduced to a generation of people watching other people. Big Brother is not the enemy. It’s us.

My Top Twenty Records of the Year: Number 17:Arctic Monkeys-Suck It And See

I'm pretty sure the only person left with a MySpace might be Tila Tequila. Poor thing. The Monkeys are far ahead of the MySpace nowadays, well, at least in England. Which is a shame since somewhere between "Brainstorm" and Humbug, Alex Turner has become this generation's answer to Jarvis Cocker. Suck It and See takes the formula from the brilliant "Cornerstone", the highlight of Humbug, and stretches it across eleven songs (I would say twelve but "Brick by Brick" is basically unlistenable). Check out this little nugget: "that's not a skirt girl/that's a sawn off shotgun/and I can only hope that you got it aimed at me." Or how about this one, "do you look in the mirror to remind yourself that you're there/or have someone's goodnight kisses got that covered/Well I'm not being honest, I'll pretend you're just some lover." Or better yet: "I took the batteries out of my mysticism/and put them in my thinking cap." The album bristles with Turner's new found confidence in the pop form. One needs not reinvent the wheel, they only need to excel in it. Tila would agree I think.

My Top Twenty Records of the Year: Number 18: EMA-Past Life Martyed Saints

This record hurts. This record bleeds. If it wasn't so genuine, one would get the feeling that some junior high schooler is going to be pissed since their life is being ripped off. Under walls of noise, Erika M. Anderson explores the underbellies of resentment: there is the small town gay, the girl who kisses herself with the butterfly knife, the person who was touched and wished that every time would leave a "mark." It's disturbing to hear someone compare their arms to "glass," yet one can't help when they hear "fuck California/you make me boring." It's these extremes that make this record extremely hard to figure out, yet fascinating all the same.

20 Albums of the Year: Number 19- Braids "Native Speaker"

The thing opens up and you want to hate it. It's so expansive, so expressive, so there that you want to reject it. Who are these kids trying to be? Animal Collective? And you can't blame yourself for shrugging it off. After all, the record opens as "Peacebone's" slightly stable twin. But then the fog comes in. Have you fucked the stray kids yet it calls, we are all just sleeping around it confirms. Your mind is reeling. She claims to only want to love but she keeps hitting you with jabs. Wasn't tribal music so last year? You're grasping for straws. "Plath Heart" should be playing at some Urban Outfitters if things were done right around here. Nice try; you are drowning in the kids pool. It's so above you but it's so childish and so immediate. But then a strange thing happens. You're in a Starbucks or on the train and she starts killing, and I mean killing, the title track and it all makes sense. All is right. You sip your coffee and slightly feel better about letting yourself go. Breathe and exhale with the record.

Top Twenty Records of the Year: Number 20 Iceage:New Brigade

Sometimes albums take you by surprise. Four teens from Denmark, aged somewhere between 18 and 19, took the internet over for what seemed like an eternity. Who were they? Were their bloody shows any indication of the chaos that would come with them? Was their debut any good? While the verdict is still out of the first two questions (they just played their first American shows), the last is answered with a resounding yes. New Brigade is a fast, loud, twenty-six minute or so blast of Joy Division/Wire inspired hardcore/punk. But what really differentiates the record from the crop of similar sounding records is the hooks. It grabs you by the neck and never lets go. "Broken Bone" starts off like a demented surf rock jam and divulges into angular, spiky territory, the title track has easily the best madolin-sounding breakdown I've ever heard in hardcore, and "Never Return" clocking in a hair over three minutes, slows things enough to show you that these tough teens have a soft side (albeit a noisy one). A band to watch.

Skip the Youth

Is this all the luster left

of the young heart?

Plugging holes

Looking for transcendence

In odd places

Feeling oddly unsatisfied

Underworked and overtaught

While the grind thaws away

at every artistic part of you

Drinking

Drinking

Drinking copious amounts

Drowning inside the hops

and barley to search

for a release or a delayed morning

Outdoing and excelling

at miscommunication

Strands constantly missing

Threads lost

Thrown across the floor

Like junk mail

They say that

Arrogance

Invincibility

Youth

Is wasted on the young

But what about hunger?

Satisfaction?

Purpose?

When does the aching stop?

When can one stop fantasizing

And actually pretend to exist?

If these are the spoils of youth

Let me take the nearest exit

To pruned hands and crows feet

The Nowhere

HUSTLE

Breathe. For a moment let the gridlock rock alongside you, not with you, he managed to make his body think. The pace was exhausting. The up and downs. The roller coaster ride he had been riding. It reminded him not of the expensive, steel roller coasters he had become accustomed to at an older age; it was the wooden, rickety circular one that constantly made his brain hurt and his stomach drop to the point of near vomit.

The stomach pains. They came with the rush as well. Results of the ride, he would make himself believe during the moments of questioning realization. It’s all part of the ride. You can’t expect to ride the ride, go up and down the god damn hills and not expect to get sick. Sure, his stomach was barren, naked at times from the caffeine he had plunged it with; coffee, espresso, energy drinks riddled with sugar when times where especially pressing became aides to get through the haze of fatigue when times where rough. The stomach pains, the constant bleeding through his anus, the dry heaves. They were effects of the struggle. The ride to the top he envisioned for himself ever since he was a tot and now seemed closer than ever to achieving.

It didn’t hurt that he was the youngest editor on the staff. He was the youngest editor they had ever hired. He wasn’t the smartest, no (that had to go to Greg Swanson, who was fluent in three languages, had translated several obscure Italian neo-realist authors before his undergraduate graduation, and could, accurately, name every Pulitzer winner and their eventual offspring creations after winning the award), or the most connected (Doug Manawitz; father once held court at The New Yorker, came from the richest bloodline of Polish Jews on the Eastern coast), but he was definitely the most driven. He was always the first one in the building, often rivaling the morning cleaning crew, and was, at most times, the last one to leave, once again excluding the ever-present janitor. His fingers would blaze over the keyboard, his eyes scarcely ever missed an err, and his taste for simplified language, for the elimination of complicated feeling in others writing, made him a favorite amongst the higher ups. He had, in his mind at least, the common man in mind and wanted the common man, or woman, to enjoy literature as he had, without the common pretensions that came with being well read. Just give me a good goddamn story he found himself chanting whenever the opportunity arrived.

It didn’t hurt that he had talent either. His first published short story, The Funeral, had been published in various dispatches across the greater state of New York. It was a rough story, full of lashed emotion and great declarations (“It was then, at that very moment, when he felt the burden of masculinity, of being his father’s son, be lifted and the clearness, the after the storm leveling, that he finally broke down and found himself crumbled into spasms of emotion. To feel, to let himself be remorse, was something he had disallowed for some time. He was human once again!”) stuck out, but it showed signs of a great budding talent. It took his third published story, The Screw and Everything After, for the New Yorker to take notice, and for Chris Stratton, the young, idealistic writer, to finally get paid for what he believed he had been born to do. To write. With the slight acclaim he had achieved with actually being published in the Holy Grail of discovering new talents, he forced his way into Banbely Publishing, the Holy Grail of publishing new, exciting voices. Sure, it was only an editor position and his struggles to balance creativity with professional responsibilities scared Chris to death that he found himself gasping at times on the subway, eyes bulging, but it was an entrance none the less. He had found a loophole in the ever-impenetrable entrance to literary greatness and he planned to exploit for all he good. Hence, the rush.