jimmy

I really fucking hated 2014. It’s a miracle I made it to Dec. 31 without offing myself. Let’s just hope 2015 is a little better.

With sports mostly in my rear view mirror, I fell back into music this year. Hard.

However, for the most part it was disillusioning. I figured with the mechanism of music distribution largely decentralized, the likes of Taylor Swift and those pop princesses who produce bland mediocre music would be nearing extinction. But no. Everywhere you turned, there she was. With her stupid retarded cat. With her appropriation of the retro-80s fitness video. Gag me.

So I mostly retreated to what was safe and familiar for me: industrial music. It’s like high school all over again!

Aesthetic Perfection – ‘Til Death

I really liked this album for perhaps all of the wrong reasons. I always wondered what a male version of Lady Gaga would sound like. This is the closest I’ve ever heard. Of course Daniel Graves doesn’t have all of the contrivances of a Lady Gaga, the production and art team to surround him, etc. But it was sexy, energetic, slightly ominous and just plain fun to listen to.

Liars – Mess

Even when listening to this album on a CD or mp3s, there is a distinct Side A and Side B. This is perhaps their most concentrated effort since 2006’s Drum’s Not Dead. Side A is a burst of energy makes you want to break things. Side B is more muted, a somber study that echos the tribal aspects of Drum’s Not Dead.

Trust – Joyland

Moody. Surreal. Dancey. Scary.

D’Angelo – Black Messiah

Holy shit. This picks up where Voodoo left off in 2000. And despite being 15 years in the making, it doesn’t sound forced. It’s a protest album that stays true to the sexiness that D’Angelo’s music oozes.

Aphex Twin – Syro

Another artist who has been out of commission for a bit. Although this return was intended as a compilation of Richard D. James has been up to the past few years, it sounds fresher than most things out there.

Swans – To Be Kind

I never cared much for Swans during my music cultivation period (i.e. adolescence) of the 90s. But holy shit Michael Gira and company have been on fire since 2010’s My Father Will Guide Me up a Rope to the Sky.

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Here are other things I was listening to that were not released this year.

Skinny Puppy – Weapon

Front Line Assembly – Echogenetic

Coil – Black Antlers

Hole – My Body the Hand Grenade

D’Angelo released his new album Black Messiah at midnight, and holy fuck is it good. It’s one of the few pieces of music that had me overcome with emotions. As I’m typing this, I’m in my second listen of the album.

It has been said that in creating this album, D’Angelo and his collaborators record to tape rather than the new-fangled digital methods more commonly used now. I don’t know if that’s why the album sounds real organic, warm and really fucking sexy, but it’s quite old school.

And speaking of old school, as you can tell from the picture above I have gone analog in my writing. That is a snapshot of my journal which I have started going back to. Maybe I’ll scan some entries and post them here? Maybe I’ll just keep it to myself and post edited versions here. Just call me Anais Nin.

A week after the revelation, I’m still a bit paralyzed as to what to do. One thing I did was take inventory of the books I actually have. Although I have a Goodreads account, I don’t like the way it handles libraries. It’s actually really cumbersome to use it that way.

So I created a Libib account. 60 books. My entire library as of right now. It reminds me of a John Waters quote: “If you go home with somebody and they don’t have books, don’t fuck ’em!”

Words to live by.

I’m unsure as to how to proceed. I don’t know whether I should re-buy the books I had already read as if they were trophies of conquests. It’s this one question that has me completely paralyzed right now.

I suppose I should just get out there to the used book stores and get to work.

Well, I’m not exactly bookless. This is the extent of my physical personal library right now.

When I moved back to San Pedro in Dec. 2009, I couldn’t bring all of my books with me. Thanks to the packrat ways of my mother and grandmother, I would have to part with my book collection temporarily.

Eventually they found a home in my uncle’s attic. Sure it really sucked I couldn’t have them with me, but at least I knew once my stay here was done I would be reunited with them.

Earlier this afternoon, my uncle’s wife came in and told me she had given them away to charity by mistake earlier this year. I couldn’t say anything. In fact, I think my face just froze into the disbelieving smile I had.

She thought I would be angry, but sadness was what took hold of me. I reassured her of that.

I feel really retarded that I’m basically grieving over this. I hadn’t had them with me for about five years. It’s not like I thought of my books everyday.

Sure I owned several hundred books — I never did a full inventory of my library, but I’m sure it was quickly approaching 500. But there were handwritten annotations I made in the margins, the memories of where I was when I read a certain book, where I was in my life, where I was when I bought the book. Books from bookstores that no longer exist, books that I read to ignore the stupid crushes I had on straight boys. There were the books that I bought just to be subversive. The books I bought because I didn’t want to read the books I was assigned to read.

I feel like part of my identity had been ripped from me. I know how stupid that sounds. I know all of this is irrational. But that’s what I’m feeling right now. Maybe this will go away soon.

Since my family got together for Thanksgiving last night, I have the day to fart around. I was feeling off because of the increased sodium intake, so I knew I had to do something. Since it’s damn near 90 degrees here in Southern California, I thought it would be a great day to go to the Forrestal Preserve for the first time in months. And it was gorgeous out there.

Sure I went only 2 miles, but what this lacks in length it makes up with… elevation (not girth you fucking perverts). It’s been a while since I’ve done this, so the initial climb was a bitch. It goes from 443 feet to 801 feet in 0.35 miles — that’s an average of a 19% grade right off the bat.

Now I’m back home doing laundry.

I’m not thankful for anything you fucking bastards.

Anyone who heard the last episode of The B&J Podcast knows that I’ve become inundated with bullshit that’s left me paralyzed by incoherent burning rage. My solution is to avoid all of the bullshit, but I have to admit I’m not doing a very good job of it.

Nothing that happened last night surprised me. A white prosecutor who loves himself some police folks and who could really care less about the plight of the black folks was going to do as little as possible to get an indictment on Darren Wilson. I’m guessing the most work he had done in the 108 days since Wilson killed Mike Brown was last night when he announced to the world that he wouldn’t, as a prosecutor, prosecute the officer.

I was also not surprised that Ferguson and St. Louis erupted like it did, and I wasn’t surprised that white people didn’t get why people would loot and set shit on fire.

I really tried to avoid all of this, but I’m weak. When a friend remarked about the fires and looting and wondering why they would do that, and I replied with something like, “they must have been very desperate and angry to be reacting like this,” it took about 10 minutes to realize I made a mistake. Another one of his friends didn’t get it and thought the black folks in a former slave state should temper their reactions through a white-person’s prism. As if being told over and over again that it’s okay for white people to kill you without impunity should get a reaction of “meh”.

I knew I had to really stop. So on came Netflix and on came Planes, Trains and Automobiles and Advanced Style.

The last time I saw Planes was when I was in fifth grade. I remembered loving it and thinking how badly I felt for Steve Martin’s character. After all, he’s just trying to get home to his family for Thanksgiving, and having to make the trip with someone as insufferable as John Candy’s character must have been really trying.

Fast forward 25 years, and man I have done a 180. Neal was a complete dick who had his head stuck up his own ass, and Del seemed like a nice enough fellow just trying to avoid life. The overall movie holds up pretty well, although now with cell phones there is no way it could happen.

Then I watched Advanced Style, a documentary about a bunch of stylish old broads in New York City. J’adore! J’adore! J’adore! Part of it is being my grandmother’s caretaker. No matter how much in pain she’s in, she gets her hair permed and dyed quarterly because it makes her feel pretty. And it does make her feel better. As heavy as her steps are normally because of her back and knee pain, for a day or two after she gets her did did her steps are noticeably lighter.

Also, some of these women wear the most avant-garde things, it’s truly inspirational. I don’t know what it says about me that the only things that light a fire under my ass is when I watch something about Riot Grrls and old broads with style. But there it is, I suppose.

I think I need to go shopping…

Rankings rankings rankings. I don’t get it.

In soccer, a team gets three points for a win, one point for a draw and no points for a loss. The season plays out, and the team with the most points is crowned a champion.

In college football, a panel of people decide who they like. It’s all very arbitrary and, let’s be frank, retarded. Is Alabama the best team? Should TCU be ranked ahead of Baylor?

So I started these Napkin Rankings this year. Actually ESPN Radio’s Bob Valvano created this concept several years ago. It’s very simple. Teams get and lose points throughout the season. The best teams will have the most points, and the worst ones will have the least. Teams get:

+1 point for a Division I FBS win.
+1 point for a Power-Five conference win (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, SEC).
+1 point for playing on the road.
-1 point for losing.
+1 point for a “dominant” win. A dominant win is usually a 30-point win against a Power-Five team that is not winless in its conference.

This means that Auburn got no points for beating Samford, an FCS team. Also, Mississippi State didn’t get a “dominant” win extra point for trouncing Vanderbilt. So below are the updated rankings:

Now to get rid of playoffs.

Dallas Aunt was in town this past week to visit her ailing mother, which meant I got a few sweet days off from Grandmother Duty. In other words, I had the option of going out barhopping into all hours of the night.

Of course years of near isolation combined with getting older has cut down on my pool of people I can go out with. Casual acquaintances from years ago have dropped off. Now as my friends and I are deep in our 30s and older, coupling and children have come into play. What happened to my carefree 20s?

Thankfully Daniel (Yobo) was willing to go out with me to a scuzzy gay bar. After deliberation we decided to go to Faultline for their monthly party Brutus hosted by the amazingly still alive Mario Diaz. Earlier this year Frontiers LA named Brutus as the best gay party in LA.

I’ve been to some great parties in my life. There was Cherry in the late 90s and early 00s which was completely glam until 9/11 killed it. There was Bricktops, a 20s Weimar Republic themed night hosted by Vaginal Creme Davis. There was Makeup, another shot of glam and decadence hosted by Alexis Arquette.

Brutus didn’t come close to any of those parties. DJ Mark spun what amounted to Nu-disco, house with a huge disco sentiment that was quite annoying since it didn’t know whether it wanted to be disco or house. I guess since it was the Faultline I expected a little more rock schlock, but maybe since I’ve been away the clientele had changed.

I looked around and the crowd reminded me a lot of the old Akbar/MJs crowd of the mid 00s — the not-quite-so-polished WeHo rejects but nothing near what could be considered menacing as I remembered Faultline being. There was a guy who looked like an old-timey French strongman complete with a handlebar mustache — looking at the veins of his biceps he clearly had physical gifts, but when he danced it was clear that physical aptitude didn’t translate to finding a beat. There was a guy who wore a midriff cutoff shirt and short-shorts who I thought was hot in a trashy let’s piss on each other and lick each other’s pits — it was unfortunate he probably wouldn’t be allowed to ride on Viper at Magic Mountain. There was a guy who had really tall anime-type hair.

But it was amazing how in a room of guys there was a lot of nondescript. “See anything you like,” Yobo asked me at one point. I told him about how unfortunate Little Person wasn’t taller, but that was it.

Last call was signaled, and we high-tailed it out of there en route to Astros. As we headed out, it didn’t matter that there was no nookie-nookie, that my ass was unmolested, that the toons were meh, that I reeked of cigarettes, that there wasn’t a whole lot of eye candy, that I was hoarse from having to yell over the top of the music. I realized that I was over the fucking moon that I was out hanging with one of my favoritest people in this pitiful world. I gpt the sniff of freedom for one night! I got back home at 3:30 am with no hint of remorse or guilt.

Saturday night, I was an actual human being!

Now back to what my life has become. (Mental note: buy rope for the noose.)

I’m torn about this novel. Despite my last post about it, I did enjoy reading it. Nothing about it is too difficult to get through. There is enough intrigue to hold one’s attention. But I’m telling you the last third of the book was underwhelming.

Here is a story about Tengo and Aomame, a math teacher who wants to be a writer and a personal trainer and sometime assassin. The novel is divided into three books, and each chapter alternates with their narrative. I spent Book 1 wondering how the two related to one another and whether the two stories were taking place at the same time. In drips and drabs those answers were revealed, and the rest of the novel was spent wondering how they would eventually reunite.

The big problem came towards the end of Book 2 when Aomame is sent to kill the head of a cult. The subtlety of the story was dispensed, and we were given a lot of information at once. In a ten-page span all the answers were given, and the joy and thrill of discovering these little bits of plot vanished. Just like that.

The last book was spent wondering how Aomame and Tengo were eventually going to reunite, and that was interesting in and of itself, but that big deluge in Book 2 made everything that came after it so unfulfilling.

It was lazy, plain and simple.

Another problem that kept nagging at me throughout the novel is one that often tugs at me when reading a translation. Early on my acupuncturist asked me how I was enjoying the book, and I told her that I really liked it. She said that she loved the way Murakami wrote, and that gave me pause. Since I’m reading a translation, how much of Murakami was I actually reading? The subtlety of the language, was that Murakami’s doing or the translator? How well can we trust the translators?

Those are questions I can’t answer definitively without reading the novel in its original Japanese form.

Despite this, I really did like the book.