Dumb Assumptions

Well it took something that moderately pissed me off to remember that I had a blog.

I have a VOICE. This is supposedly empowering but I'm not sure.

What pissed me off was this Pitchfork review of The Dismemberment Plan's new LP Uncanney Valley. I'll just tell you straight up I pretty much love this band, grew up listening to them in DC, so obviously I'm biased but so is everybody so that shouldn't matter too much as long as I'm aware of it. Consider me aware.

That the review pans the album with a 4.5 score doesn't really bother me so much, because I generally think music criticism is a waste of time. There's certainly good critical music writing out there, but there's also a whole glut of it that stinks of people thinking and assuming too much, and also trying so very hard to sound like they know something you don't.

What bothers me is something I keep seeing in a lot of music & writing criticism: Why do lots of folks seem to assume that a writer or a lyricist is always writing from their own point of view? I really don't get this. Writers love playing a role, creating characters, acting out, whatever. Why is it assumed these are all the actual thoughts of the writer him/herself and not the writer acting out a role?

Paul Thompson hated Travis Morrison's lyrics on the new 'Plan album. Fine, fair enough. I happen to like them for all their weirdness, but who really cares. I hate pickles and olives and I bet Thompson doesn't really care. But why is he assuming Morrison is singing about himself the whole time? Here's part of his review:

All over Uncanney Valley, Morrison—once one of indie rock's most incisive, identifiable lyricists—cracks wise, veers off erratically, shoehorns in dated slang or beside-the-point chanting. "Well, look who it is—been a little while since you been up in my 'biz," he sputters as "Waiting" whirrs to a start, coming off like a "cool dad" in a lousy sitcom. "I am not an inhibited man—try to keep it in my pants when I can," he admits on lowlight "White Collar White Trash", before rattling off a far-too-long list of places he's been "doin' it in."

I think his use of the superlative "one of rock's most incisive, identifiable lyricists" is a pretty dumb thing to say (to my calculations there's roughly 400 million incisive indie rock lyricists). It's one of those things you can just say and don't have to defend because it's impossible to prove or refute. But whatever to that, too. (P.S. "whirrs" up there with the two Rs is really British usage and somehow I don't think he's British...sorry, can't help myself).

Anyway, I'm not trying to say that I'm sure Morrison isn't singing about himself. You'd have to ask him and if I know anything about writers, I'm pretty sure he won't tell you. But to just assume he's only singing about himself is lazy and surface level.

That's kind of my biggest problem with these real quick reviews that lots of sites like to post. An album gets listened to a few times, maybe, and then you write about it and try to put it in galactic context with superlatives of "Best New" Whatever. Maybe I'm an old fart but that just seems laughably myopic.

Everybody just calm down. Enjoy stuff, or don't. It doesn't matter. Not everything has to be the absolute best or worst. Shh...Shh...It's all gonna be OK.

Short Story # 1

Here's the first of hopefully many little things I'll publish here:

His daily morning ritual

(This actually starts the night before just minutes before his head hits the pillow with the laying out of tomorrow's jeans and the new white cotton v-neck t-shirt that'll go under the polo shirt, the setting of the alarm for ten minutes before he actually wants to get up, the teeth brushing -- my god the teeth brushing! I don't think there's enough space here to get into the teeth brushing...so but anyway, here we go...)

His alarm goes off with a 240 BPM quarter-note CAW! CAW! kinda thing but he hits the snooze and rolls to his right, unconsciously breathes in that sticky sweet morning smell of her hair pressed against a pillow (and there's her own personal sensuous smell mixed in there, too, we can't forget) that soothes him into 7 more minutes of not quite a dream but more like an atmosphere, like the aesthetic embodiment of the womb, carried on for a little bit longer, before his alarm goes CAW! again and it gets real. First thought always: ugh. Maybe 2-3 seconds of that tops. Second thought: hungry/thirsty/need to urinate. There is no third thought; next it's all a chain reaction. Legs swing out and he sits at the side of the bed, full mug of water on the night stand (oh this is also put in place the night before), chugs whole mug, goes AAH, and finds bath towel on the hook on the back of the door and wanders downstairs to the bathroom making sure to step over the cat and not on her as he crosses the hall. Fan turns on first with a switch outside the bathroom, he thinks that's stupid, the switch being outside the bathroom. The light inside switches on from the inside next to the mirror. His roommate has not hung the bath mat so it's damp and cold under his feet. In the shower he washes from the top down (mostly to avoid washing his face after having washed his ass crack): hair, face, gets a good lather around his balls and then hits the arms, armpit, chest, thighs, ass, calves, then feet. (Never really gets around to his back; that's more of a Saturday morning-type thing where all morning ritual rules get thrown out the window.) He's outta there in roughly 3 minutes and 45 seconds, which his girl simply doesn't understand. Out of the shower he always does a fly-by of the coffee-maker while it hisses and sputters finishing up the fresh brew; the aroma wakes him a little more. Back upstairs he gently opens the door to their room because he knows if you push too hard it'll squeak like a mouse from hell and wake up his girl, who's really probably half awake anyway but he wants to let her have that cherished 30 more minutes of uterine-like stasis before her own personal alarm goes off (which, by the way, sounds more like KEY! KEY! and is at a speed somewhere between a 257 and 260 BPM quarter note). So next he lotions is hands, then face, then his arms but only a little there; he makes sure to spray his Axe body spray outside their room so she doesn't wake with that over-concentrated just-sprayed taste in her mouth, then he rolls the Old Spice Pure Sport on his armpits, down-up strokes 7 times (for Mickey Mantle) where each downstroke is a 1. All this is done naked. Next the boxers go on, then the pre-laid pants, the v-neck, then the polo. The last minute out the door is a blur of keys, wallet, iPhone, coffee, somehow he's backed the car out of their narrow driveway in a haze and again managed to not hit the pedestrians who all seem to assume he's paying attention and won't accidentally eliminate their maps on the spot.

And so if he doesn't follow through on all these little things one-by-one the morning is shot to hell and he's grumpy toward his co-workers and, later, possibly even grumpy toward the motherly immigrant sandwich lady who then won't take quite the care as is needed to properly make his roast beef/swiss cheese/tomato/lettuce/mayo/mustard on pumpernickle, and probably some mustard will poop out onto his shirt, and then the whole afternoon's shot and he starts thinking about how to rectify it all by properly following through the next morning, so the evening's spent going over the day's mistakes, that is until she holds him and says, "honey baby boo it's all right i love you" and they fall asleep more or less in each others arms, forgetting the laying out of the clothes, and the water mug, or even the setting of the alarm, and they both know and don't care that tomorrow's going to be a sick day.