March 2005 Archives

In lieu of anything better to talk about, here's the playlist for the latest mix tape:

Forgettable - by Grandmaster J

1. Walk on By - Isaac Hayes Not to be confused with the song 2Wicky by... was it Hooverphonic? Or am I thinking of Portishead? Sappy, but I like it.
2. Queen Bitch - David Bowie David Bowie rocks. Sometimes. This is one of those times.
3. Pocket Calculator - Kraftwerk This song gets better the more I listen to it.
4. Only Daddy That'll Walk That Line - Waylon Jennings If you're thinking about getting into country and wondering what all the fuss is about, you could do worse than starting with Waylon Jennings.
5. West Coast Poplock - Ronnie Hudson The 80's were dark days for R&B in general, but there were some highlights. This is one of them.
6. Ymaelodi Â'r Ymylon - Super Furry Animals "Pop" isn't a dirty word in Britain like it is here. And since this is the kind of pop they're putting out, you can see why.
7. Baby Elephant Walk - Henry Mancini The Cub has adopted this as his theme song. Excellent choice, in my hog-tied opinion.
8. Mami Te Extrano - Los Amigos Invisibles Venezuelan funk, although this is one of their more Latin-sounding numbers. Although this has the same structure as "Oye Como Va". I'm not sure what it's called. It's not exactly Salsa, it's certainly not Merengue, and those are the only two genres I know.
9. Give Me The Night - George Benson See above about 80's R&B.
10. Shakin' - The Dandy Warhols This isn't their best song, but there's something compelling about it. I think it's probably the really bad singing.
11. Freddie's Dead - Curtis Mayfield If you need an explanation as to why this is in there, you need to get out more.
12. Moon River - Andy Williams For some reason, I keep having a vision of someone sticking their finger in someone's ass when I hear this. Not sure why.
13. Cavern - Liquid Liquid I picked up the new LCD Soundsystem recently. Not bad. I was thinking I should put something by them on there. But I decided, why settle for the cheap imitation? Why not use the original?
14. The Fightin' Side Of Me - Merle Haggard Depending on the crowd I'm hanging out with, this is possibly the most subversive song I have in my collection.
15. The Passenger - Iggy Pop It took me a long time to get into Iggy Pop. Almost as long as it took me to get into Kraftwerk. But I've come around on him too.
16. Across the Universe - Laibach This song belongs in a movie somewhere. Like probably while the opening credits are rolling. One of those scene-establishing montages from somewhere in some supposedly-idyllic suburb, like at the begining of Blue Velvet.
17. Playing Your Game, Baby - Barry White I was going to say something generic like, "It doesn't get any better than Barry White", but that's not true. It does get better. But there's nobody who does what he does better. That Barry White brand of emotional maximalism.
18. Faith - George Michael I think this song had been out for 10 years before I noticed that the organ at the beginning is playing Wham!'s "Freedom".
19. Ain't No Half Steppin' - Big Daddy Kane See yesterday . Or was it the day before?
20. Everybody's Talking - Harry Nilsson The fact that this is on here is probably a symptom that I'm getting lame. The J of ten years ago would have picked a fight with the J of today for being into this song. And he probably would have won, too. And, to some extent, I'd deserve it. I am getting lame. I might have tried to justify it by pleading, "But it's from 'Midnight Cowboy'! That's a good movie!" But it would be for naught. I suppose all I can do now is brace myself for the long decline that leads to death. Is it too early to start picking out a coffin?

First off, I think I might have found the new thing I'm going to be listening to: Indie 103.1 out of L.A.

This reminds me of all those cool stations, like before they got watered down. You all know what I'm talking about. You hear some guy say something like, "Man, you remember [defunct Alt. Rock Station]? Those guys were awesome! And then they were bought by [media conglomeration], and they went straight to shit. Got all watered down and corporate."

I yield to almost nobody in my love of corporations, but in this case, the hippies are right. The suits take over, and they've got spreadsheets and focus group results that demostrate scientifically that this is what the kids want to listen to. The problem being that the kids can smell bullshit a mile away. They know focus-group-driven programming when they hear it, even if they can't quite put their finger on it.

Well, the ratings take a bit of an uptick as they start getting some 16 year old girls who wouldn't otherwise tune in. And the original audience says, "Shit, this is no difference than [that one pop station]. WTF?"

And they tune out, and the suits notice their audience is less hip kids, and more 16 year old girls, and they start trying to give the audience what they want, and next thing you know, it's just another pop station that plays Jane's Addiction a bit more often.

Or something like that. I'd imagine they start making money hand-over-fist, and the people who used to listen give up on radio in disgust and take to music piracy, or lately, to XM.

Anyway, as I mentioned, this Indie 103.1 isn't like that. At least, it isn't like that yet. It's like it is when it first starts out. The glory days that people talk fondly about a couple years from now.

Being that I'm in the STL, I don't know anything about this station. I don't know if they've been bought by a company that's giving them the hands-off treatment or if some Charles Foster Kane owns them, content to lose a million dollars a year for the next 60 years. Or if they're huge in LA, or if I'm one of twelve people listening.

All I know is they're worth a listen.

So, I've been making another one of my world-class mix tapes. Or CD's. Or whatever. I've been doing them since they literally were on tape, and I suppose they'll always be "tapes" to me, regardless of the medium they happen to be on.

There's not a whole lot of reason for me to still be making CD's. When I started making them, they fit a very specific set of conditions: 1) I wasn't interested in anything on the radio, 2) most of my music was on CD, and C) I didn't have a CD player for my car. So, the mix tape constituted a "Best of J's CD Collection", in a nice, easily portible form.

Eventually, most of my music ended up on my hard drive in mp3 format, and I'd record a WinAmp playlist. Then I got a diskman and a CD burner, and started making the mix CD's. Most of its original raison d'être was gone, except for the portability thing. It was still easier to put in one CD than six or seven.

Right now, though, most of my music (actually all of it) is on Marla the iPod, and most of it is played out of the car speakers. So, why do I still make mix tapes? Good question. I'm glad you asked.

I think I keep doing it mostly because I like it. It's like arranging flowers. It's creative. I dig through the music collection, get a wild assortment of songs, and try to make them into a cohesive unit.

And, as I've found occasion to throw in the old CD's, they're a personal artifact. It's like the soundtrack for who I was and what was going on in my life at that time. So, it's like taking a music picture of myself.

That and it's a form of therapy. It's a good way of figuring out what my emotional disposition is. If I end up with a bunch of peppy upbeat songs, I'm probably in a good mood lately. If I end up with a bunch of dark stuff, I'm probably not.

Not that I actually, you know, do anything with that information, but it's good to know, in any case.

And finally, I end up giving them away to people. Since I tend to become an apostle for bands, and want to share them with the world. And overall, I have awesome taste in music, and think anyone would benefit from whatever I'm listening to.

***

Anyway, I wasn't going to write about all that. I was more going to make a point about one of the songs in there: "Ain't No Half Steppin'" by Big Daddy Kane.

First off, this song is genius. Came out in 1988, and it kinda shows its age to some extent. But it also shows that there are some things that can't be much improved on. The guy puts together some really good rhymes. Really smooth delivery. And, as the Big Daddy says, it's got a nice mellow beat. Although they have that sample of, um, whatever that sound effect is that got way overused in the late 80's and and early 90's. (I think it's from "UFO" by ESG)

The thing that I notice is that it's basically 5 minutes of Mr. Kane talking about how great he is. The only other subject matter that comes up (usually in passing) is how much the other rappers suck.

So, he did it well, and -- the Big Daddy being as awesome as he is -- it's certainly a rich vein to tap. But I can see how there's just so many ways to talk about how great you are. Especially when your awesomeness isn't quite as self-evident as it is for the BDK.

So, I guess the Gangsta Rap thing makes sense. I'm sure it came as a breath of fresh air that, rather than just talking about how great they are, and how much the other rappers suck, they talk about how dangerous they are, and how they're just going to shoot the other rappers.

Maybe not a step in the right direction, but it's certainly different.

Well, there's more to it than that. Since the sale of rap albums was always propelled by white kids in the suburbs. But that's a story for another day.

So, Easter. The one day that, no matter how half-assed you've been all year, you absolutely have to drag your ass to mass.

Well, I suppose you don't have to drag your ass there, but I like to keep my options open. I'd like to have at least a toe in the Church in case I have a change of heart when I get older. That way I won't seem like a complete fraud. Just a really big one.

So Easter mass is a must. The scheduling problem being that, for reasons which I'm still not sure about, the extended family was meeting for breakfast at 10:30. Which would foreclose any Easter morning mass but the 8 a.m. mass. I can't even get to work at 8 a.m., and those people are paying me.

So, I had this bright idea. Why not go to the Saturday mass? Genius! Then mass is taken care of, and I can sleep in until closer to 9:30 in the morning.

I set up the plan: The Cub was with the folks during the day, while I was writing code, so I figured, let's meet at the Fitz's around the corner from me (which, coincidentally, would also have the Illinois game on), and then go to the 9 p.m. vigil at the New Cathedral. Then, me and the Cub would be home at 10 or so, where we'd watch Castle in the Sky, which I hear is awesome, like all Miyazaki movies.

Well, dinner was all right. Although we left with Illinois down by six with less than a minute left, assuming they'd go down to defeat. Then when we got to the car about a block away, the radio guy announces "And we're tied at 80!"

Moral of that story: Don't count the Illini out.

Then off to the vigil, as we listened to the Illini's thrilling overtime victory.

The service got under way outside. There was some kind of lighting ceremony, and everyone lit candles, and headed back inside for the rest of the mass. It was very nice and serene. There was also quite a bit more speaking than I remembered. And more stuff with incense.

I first noticed that something was highly amiss when I looked in the program and at the bottom of the page it said "Third Reading".

Third reading? I thought there were two readings.

Then I turned the page, and there were the fourth through seventh readings. I believe there were nine altogether. All told, I believe we ended up reading half the Old Testiment.

At some point Mom leaned over and said words that will in the future send a chill down my spine: "Have you ever been to a High Mass?"

I don't think we got to the Gospel until 10:30. And I think there were a couple of rounds of sprinkling, incensing, et cetera. And then... the Baptisms. Like seventeen of them.

Then... the Confirmations. Another 20 or 30 of those.

We got communion at about 12:10, and then threw in the towel and snuck out the back. 3 hours and 10 minutes of mass. And it was still going on when we left!

So, it was boring. On the other hand, the mosaics there are awesome beyond belief. So, all in all it could have been worse.

And, I suppose it wasn't nearly as bad as being crucified for the sins of a bunch of ingrates like me.

The Cub arrives tomorrow. Should be a fun weekend of, um, I dunno. I'm sure we'll figure out something.

***

Other than that, I got nothing.

Sorry folks, it's been a long week. And it still isn't done. Ugh.

I was talking to a friend of mine this evening. We'll call him Justin, because that's what his name is. Anyway, he was talking about a dream of his. Not the "all alone and rolling a donut" kind of dream, thank God. I'm with -- who was it? Elaine on Seinfeld? -- whoever it was, who said there's nothing more boring than hearing about someone else's dream. No, this was more the MLK kind of dream. Well, while I suppose it's that kind of dream, I think MLK's was quite a bit more serious than Justin's. His is a dream of a return of seriousness.

This lack of seriousness he's talking about manifests itself in numerous ways. The specific way he was talking about this evening is this trend of trust fund girls wearing stuff they found at the thrift store. Granted, Justin shops at thrift stores, but I think that's more because he's cheap. And when he does, he's looking for the good stuff.

He's talking about the girls who A) pick out stuff from the 80's that only serious dorks were wearing, and then 2) totally ruin the façade by wearing $500 sunglasses with them.

I think his bigger gripe is, why can't people just do their thing? What's with the six or seven layers of irony piled on top? Why can't someone just write a song that's just a song? Why does it have to be a clever reference to eight other songs? Or dress they way they do because it looks good, not because they're making some kind of statement about, um... Okay, I'm not sure what kind of statement is being made with the leg warmers.

I think specifically, he's talking about seriousness as the opposite of postmodernism. I don't think he's talking about seriousness as the opposite of humor. I think he's saying, if you're going to do comedy, do comedy. Don't do comedy where the jokes revolve around how lame comedy is.

I see where he's coming from, although, I'm not for a wholesale return of seriousness. I tend to live my life as viewed through a prism of ironic detatchment. Frankly, it's working pretty well.

But there should be some more honesty. If it's lame, let it be lame, just let it be what it is. Like today, I was listening to the first Van Halen album. The fun those guys were having just radiated out of the headphones. I don't know if Van Halen could exist today. Well, I guess they kinda sorta do exist, but not like the old Van Halen. I'm more talking about a group of people who rock just for the sake of rocking out, because apparently, rocking out is the most fun anyone can have. No agendas, other than possibly to have unprotected sex with hundreds of women.

Is that really so much to ask for?

On the other hand, there are serious bands out there. Apparently that Trent Reznor guy is a pretty mellow guy outside of the studio. Inside the studio, though, it's all about how shitty and miserable things are, and how pissed off he is about it. He projects the image of a guy who hasn't smiled since he was five, if then.

On the positive side, he does what he does, and doesn't wink at the cool kids in the back, as though to say, "Yeah, this is all bullshit, but let's keep that between you and me". He doesn't apologize for what it is. It's just his thing.

Now if only he could put out an album that doesn't suck.

So, I guess the clarion call is for people to just do their thing. Be courageous. Stand for something. Even if it's nothing but unbridled hedonism. So long as it's your hedonism.

***

As I'm thinking about it, this ended up being my take on things. After I got started, I'm not sure it ended up having any relationship to what Justin was thinking. But hey. This is my blog. If he wants to trumpet his version of seriousness to dozens of people, he can get his own damned blog.

I have the sense that I should probably have an opinion about this Terry Schiavo embroglio. Scratch that. I should have a stronger opinion than I do. I suppose if God were to put a gun to my head and order me to make a decision, I'd keep her plugged in.

On the other hand, if I were in congress, I'd probably vote against leaving her plugged in, and send a stern message to the people of Florida: "If you don't want this happening, I suggest you do something about your judiciary."

Which is to say, I'm also for federalism when it's my ox being gored.

Although it isn't being gored very viciously. I'm just not able to get very exercised about this. The pro-Terry people make some very good points about the slippery slope and all that. And really, how is her case that terribly different from someone who had a stroke? Or Alzheimer's?

And this nonsense, "We're not killing her, we're just taking away the tubes that are keeping her alive and letting nature take its course." What kind of flapdoodle is that? I suppose by that logic, if you left a six-month-old infant on the patio during a blizzard, you didn't do anything wrong. It was just the infant body's natural reaction to sub-zero temperatures and snow.

So, let's not mince words here. It's a terrible thing they're doing, and frankly, a whole lot of the anti-Terry people seem to be just ecstatic about this turn of events. This isn't something to be delighted about. It's one thing if you take a cold-eyed look at the facts and decide, "She should die." It's quite another thing to say, "Oh, isn't it just delightful she's going to die?"

And this is just sticking with first principles here. I'm not even going to wade into the murky morass that is this particular case. I'll just say that I'm pretty well convinced that there's something very fishy about this, and I wouldn't be surprised if more facts come up that make the right-to-die people wish they hadn't had a different case to make their stand on.

But I think if we've all learned anything here, it's the importance of letting people know what your wishes are on matters of mental incapacitation. Or, in my case, further mental incapacitation than I labor under normally.

And since you fine people are as good as any to be sharing this with, here I present:

J's Living Will

To the poor unfortunate schlubs who have to decide what to do with their son/father/brother/husband/casual acquaintance J:

The most basic point to be made is that the medical research field is filled with brilliant people dedicated to doing a good job, improving people's lives, and making themselves filthy rich in the process. I know, because I am one of those people. (Although, I haven't yet made myself filthy rich.)

So, since I have faith in the fine men and women doing the medical research -- research that will both enrich people's lives and hopefully enrich the researchers' bank accounts -- if you're going to err, err on the side of giving them a chance.

First off, if I'm not hooked up to a respirator, you can't pull the feeding tubes on me, no matter what. Just make sure I'm turned often enough, comfortable, well fed. Or at least, fed well enough. Maybe not as much as I'm fed now. I could stand to lose a few pounds. But just enough to keep me healthy, and possibly render me trim and svelte.

(It's too bad I'll be incapacitated. I'd like to see that.)

On the other hand, I'm not insensitive to the staggering cost of medical treatment. (The filthy lucre that I hope will be coming my way has to come from somewhere. And somewhere, someone else will be getting rich off my lounging around all vegitative-like.)

However, we only get one chance on this mortal coil, and someone as awesome as this guy doesn't come along very often. So long as I have some brain activity, even if I'm hooked up to a gigantic iron lung, a la Arthur Digby Sellers in The Big Lebowski, you're stuck with me. I only hope that the aforementioned filthy lucre has come my way before then, so it won't be that big a burden on you. If it is a big burden, just know that you have nothing but my sympathy.

Well, depending on how much brain activity I have, you probably won't be getting much sympathy from me. But the J of the past (i.e. me writing this right now) extends his blessings and apologies to his loved ones of the possible future for any anguish my condition causes.

If, however, I have no brain activity, or something really minimal, and the machines are doing all the work for me, pull the plug.

And when I say, "no brain activity", I'm leaving that up to you guys. Use your best judgement.

Furthermore, since I'm such a big fan of democracy and group thinking, I don't want one person making this choice. I want this to be a majority vote of the following: my parents, my siblings, my wife (assuming I get one of those), and my children. And if there's a tie, the "don't unplug J" side wins.

And if the losing side sues the winning side, you're out of the will and I'll haunt you from beyond the grave. (Which reminds me, I should write a will and put that in it.)

Finally -- and this isn't a life-or-death thing -- let's say something happens that renders me, not fully incapacitated, but partially incapacitated. Like a brick falls on my head, and I'm "not quite right" any more. If I seem happy, if not as bright as I used to be, please be happy for me. Don't mourn the loss of the old J. Celebrate the creation of the new, kind of dumb, but delighted to be alive, J.

Bad weekend to be a Sooner.

I don't know why, but I couldn't get into basketball this season. Maybe it was the particularly ignominious way the football season ended, burned me out of collegiate atheletics completely for a while.

Man, ever since 2000, seems like each season has been a disaster of sorts. Like the Fates allow just enough hope in to allow the Sooner faithful to put their entire head in the aligator's mouth, then snap it shut. If this keeps up for the next, I dunno, 40 years or so, I'll have a pretty good idea of what the Red Sox have been going through lo these many decades.

On the other hand, if this keeps up for 40 years, that means we'd be running a 45 game winning streak over Texas. There are worse fates.

***

I think I might be getting the hang of this whole cooking thing. I'm developing a philosophy. I'm starting to see what you're supposed to be doing, what the point is, the magic of ingredients coming together.

And every meal is a surprise. Never quite know if it's going to be awesome or grim. And since I like suprises and have a pretty good sense of humor, I think that's pretty cool stuff.

Like a lot of things, the key seems to be not getting discouraged by your mistakes, since that's really the only way to learn.

I made a rum cake. It wasn't bad, but somehow I'm missing the magic missing step that Mum has started doing but hasn't gotten around to updating the recipe yet. So, it was good, and if you'd never had Mum's you'd probably think it was sensational. But I have had Mum's, and I thought it was missing something.

On the other hand, that could just be a product of nostalgia. Like if Mum and I used each other's recipes, I'd be thinking, "Not bad, but Mum's is better."

I mentioned yesterday I'd talk about what I liked about Battlestar Galactica. Here's my take. And there are no spoilers here, really. Mostly because I'm light on specifics. Just giving my impressions.

I'm one of those guys who rails against the moral relativism that's infected culture, or, to be more specific, pop culture. Although mostly my complaint with it is that it's been done to freakin' death.

J: [deadpan] Oh, look. Another one of those 'Who's, like, really the cop and who's really the robber.' movies. Haven't seen that idea done before."

The purpose of all of the muddying the difference between the good guys and the bad guys seems to be to demostrate that A) there really are no good guys or bad guys, that we're all just shades of gray, and 2) the filmmakers are really smart for having figured this out. Aren't they? Let's all give the filmmakers a pat on the head for being so smart.

Well, fine and good. Everyone has a darker side. But then, who the hell are we suppsed to be, you know, rooting for? Why should we care about these people? That part seems to get subsumed in the more important goal of demonstrating how clever the filmmakers are. Did I mention that they should be applauded for getting that "good guys" and "bad guys" thing straightened out?

On the other hand, there is at least something to be said about relativism. I mean, who wants to cheer either for or against a cartoon character? I mean, other than Ivan Drago. Cartoon character or not, I still hate that guy.

I think the ideal is somewhere between making characters carboard cutouts and still giving us a good reason to care about their outcome. Which is where Battlestar Galactica comes in. That, for me, is the genius of this show. It shows people who seem to be deeply flawed, but still worth pulling for.

Also, there's a whole lot of morality in this show. This is one of those things that Sci-Fi can do that the more traditional genres can't, without seeming really strained. The ends can never justify the means, but... What if the ends are humanity lives on and the means are consigning thousands of other people to die?

And while such an idea might be permissible, that doesn't mean it doesn't have a cost. These people seem really to be struggling with a lot.

Then there are the dozens of questions. Who are these Cylons? What do they want? Sure they were created by humans, but is it possible they've developed a level of consiousness that gives them an equal moral footing to humans? Well, aside from the attempting to kill all the humans part. Although, they seem to be toying with them. I get the idea that humanity is like a mouse that the cat hasn't gotten around to eating yet. Or do they have other plans?

And they keep mentioning God. Is their God, like, you know, God? Or something else?

Aside from that, the acting is awesome. I'm almost willing to forgive Edward James Olmos for those pro-union ads he did back in the 80's. Almost.

The special effects are also awsome. Seeing this, I'm also getting a new appreciation for the movie Apollo 13. That movie set the bar pretty high for these things, the level of realism necessary. It looks like they spent a lot of time trying to figure out what fighter plane combat in no gravity would look like.

I could probably go on, but I'll wrap it up by saying thumbs up all around.

I don't have cable. Don't miss it much, either. I had it at the last apartment, not because I was less cheap then, but more of an oversight on the part of the cable company. I plugged a TV into the cable outlet and cable started coming out, despite my not paying for it. My way of thinking, so long as I didn't pry open the box outside and screw around with the switch, I didn't do anything wrong, and it's their job to make sure only paying people get cable service.

The only things I do miss are The Daily Show, and -- okay, not so much the Daily Show as Stephen Colbert. That guy is a genius. Deadpan humor at its finest.

I also miss those only-on-cable-because-they-shoot-people-in-the-face-and-use-the-F-word shows like the Sopranos. And occasionally I hear rumors of something really great out there that I'm not seeing. Like, for instance, the all-new Battlestar Galactica.

Fortunately, that's where the miracles of peer-to-peer come in. Some guy with a TiVo or a TV card will get a nice computerized stream of the show, then he'll do some kind of voodoo magic on it, and make it available to the cheap-asses of the world (and people in other countries) to watch. So, using my favorite P2P client, I get to keep up with my favorite HBO shows, like the explosive new season of Carnivale.

Anyway, I downloaded the first few episodes of Battlestar Galactica, and ended up spending all evening watching them. More on what I think tomorrow, because it's late. Let it suffice to say that it's really good.

Nighty night people.

It was Bedlam at the folks house in Chesterfield. The Cub is in town, as are my cousin Stephanie from my Dad's side, her two kids, ages 5 and 3, and my aunt Bernie. Yesterday, we had a big dinner, with the folks, the people I'd just mentioned, as well as another cousin (Stephanie's brother, Tony) and his fiancée. And two of my mom's sisters, my five-year-old cousin Greg, and of course my uncle Bob.

Fourteen total. It was absolute Pandemonium. Especially when the four young-un's decided to start scaring each other, which usually meant hiding behind something, and jumping out and screaming with lungs that aren't caked with tar or bruised by crushed dreams and just plain ol' getting older.

But, hey, you're only young once, so let them live it up. That's my opinion, at least. Although the warning signs are all there that adolescence is just around the corner for the Cub. Just a year ago, he'd have been in hog heaven with three kids younger than himself. Just so long as he could order them around, or come up with some game to play, he'd be fine. Well, last night, he decided he'd had enough fun and decided he just wanted to be by himself for a while, and not talk to any of the others. And when they kept bothering him, he want up to his room and locked the door.

There should be quite a bit more of the whole being up in his room for him, if I had to guess. Well, that's part of the circle of life, isn't it?

On the way home, I gave Trans-Europe Express another try. And indeed, I found it wholly listenable. Although, I was driving at night. Which leads us to J's Undeniable Fact of Life #1: Music always sounds better when you're driving around at night. Seriously, give it a try sometime.

Today is a special day. Today is the day I finally "got" Kraftwerk. So, proclaim it from the rooftops! Mark it down on your calendar. Let this day be celebrated for Ages of Ages. Let everyone proclaim each March 14^th, "Today is the day J Finally 'Got' Kraftwerk."

And do those air-quotey things around the "got", too. You know, unless you aren't into the air-quotey thingies, in which case, feel free to skip those.

You have to understand, though, that this day is about ten years in the making. I purloined a tape from my roommate in college, Man Machine. He had played the song "The Robots". I thought it was hilarious. "Leave it to the Germans," I said. And I'd occasionally put it in the tape player if I needed a pick-me-up.

Then I started finding out that there were people who actually liked the band. Like they would say, without irony, "Oh, yeah, Kraftwerk. Those guys are awesome."

And it's not like they were into the band to the exclusion of all other bands, like the archetypical "guy who's way too into Rush". These were people who seemed to have otherwise sane, well-adjusted musical tastes, but somehow, they'd gotten into Kraftwerk.

So, I started trying to figure out what I'd been missing. I'd tracked down some samples of Kraftwerk. Trans-Europe Express seemed to be a favorite. So, I got a copy of that one, and would occasionally put it in the CD player. And it just didn't make any sense to me. I couldn't figure out what the deal was.

I just couldn't get past the kitch. The weak singing with the thick German accent. The keyboards and the drum machine that seemed to more imply the beat than provide the beat. I recognized that while it was probably high quality stuff, it was so thoroughly not something I'm into. I'm into something a bit, I dunno, more. Heavier. I want lots of bass. Or drums that sound less like a metronome. Or, maybe a rockin' Steve Vai guitar solo while Diamond Dave does a backflip.

I think the biggest, most unforgivable, knock on Kraftwerk, was basically that it was just boring. Like the soundtrack for one of the fantasy RPG games. Like what you might hear while you and your party are wandering around the factory where they're building the robots that keep showing up, and you're trying to find the main power core. But not the super-exciting music they play when you're being attacked by the security, just the generic "walking around" music.

Well, all that came to an end today. Usually, when I'm listening to music, I either pick out an album explicitly (like, say, Hunky Dory by David Bowie) and listen to the whole thing, or I put it in on my "Pretty Good Stuff" playlist on random. Well, for whatever reason, I just hit "Play" (i.e. anything in my voluminous eclectic collection), and let the chips fall where they may.

As fate (in the form of a pseudorandom seed) would have it, the album Computer World came on, right while I was in the midst of some serious coding. Since my mind was elsewhere, I didn't automatically hit "Skip" seven times to get to the next thing until it had been playing for a bit. The song that intruded into my consciousness was "Pocket Calculator". I think it was totally dischordant computer noise coming into my right ear. And I started actually listening.

I fired off an IM to a friend of mine, saying, basically, this song had managed to balance itself right on the knife's edge, and was the perfect "so bad it's good" song. If it were any better, it would be just bad, and if it were any worse, it would jump right past "so bad it's good" into "awful".

Then I realized, this song is really fun. And the problems I'd had getting into Kraftwerk started to take shape. For starters, being that they're German, I was trying to make them as humorless as I'd assumed Germans to be. And -- let's be honest here -- the humorless of the world are vastly overrepresented among the Germans. But not all of them, apparently. Maybe these four are the only four in that whole country with a sense of whimsy. Or maybe I just have the wrong idea.

Anyway, once I figured out that the song was goofy by design, and it wasn't some serious song that had gone horribly awry, it was like a totally different song. And I realized what I'd been doing wrong the whole time. Maybe as much as I had been laughing at the song "The Robots", they were laughing too. Maybe the singer dude (whose name I really ought to look up) thought his German accent was as ridiculous as I did.

Well, having made it a not-serious song in my head, I started actually listening to the music. It's really compelling stuff. Very tidily put together pop music. I realized that, despite having gone through about seven or eight different filters, this was the same 12-bar blues progression used by everyone from Chuck Berry to Warrant. And those long, long stretches where nothing seems to be happening, those are actually keyboard solos! I just hadn't been paying attention.

Thus the other problem: I was trying to make the music too complicated. It wasn't complicated that complicated at all.

And almost without noticing it, I stopped being bothered by the drum machine. I decided the drum machine fit together perfectly with what they were trying to do. It's understated, it adds to the whimsy in its own way, and that seems to be the point.

Granted, some of it still sounds like video game music, but that's not a knock on Kraftwerk. It's like when you're watching an Rogers and Hammerstein musical, like, say, Oklahoma! When you see something so cliched you want to groan out loud, you just have to remind yourself that it wasn't a cliche when they were doing it. It's only a cliche now because it works so well that everyone else started doing it. And if it actually was a video game soundtrack, it would be among the finest.

So that's how I learned to stop worrying and love Kraftwerk. Okay, I think "love" is a bit sudden. But I think their stuff is worth giving a second listen. And maybe a third.