the shrewdness of apes

the Times Online reviews Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. it's pretty academic, and as derisive of the state of "pop" music in 1967 as you could easily find in many places today. and then thay have to go and take a big dump on the Monkees:

One can imagine a new pop group deciding cold-bloodedly to concentrate commerically on appealing to one of these age groups [teenagers and young adults]. The creators of the Monkees do not deny having done so and even virtuoso pop musicians are galled by the success of a group that was brought, Frankenstein-fashion, into being without reference to musical talents. Thir songs are carefully modeled on early-Beatles style uncreatively but skillfully manipulated. Their first single, Last Train to Calrksville, flopped in Britain at first, but zoomed up the charts as soon as the Monkees begain to appear in weekly short films on television (the manner of presentation heavily indebted to A Hard Day's Night. Just now, the Monkees are idols of the pre-teenage generation and are not quite despised by those approaching O-Levels. This has been their year in the absence of anything more remarkable, and the showmanship involved has to be admired, if not the musical artistry. I suspect that their songs were written by a computer fed with the first two Beatles L.P.s and The Oxford Book of Nursery Rhymes.

now I was sort of with them at first, because I know that had I been a music lover back then with a similar attitude to my own today, i probably would have hated the existence of the Monkees the way that i loathed O-Town or any of that other "made for the lowest common denominator" stuff. but the last line seemed a bit overboard. certainly it was a much harsher accusation in 1967 when computers were more theoretically mystical than it would be today (when such a thing is probably being done as we speak). i suppose i'm biased because i like the Monkees, and loved watching the reruns of the TV show back when MTV was watchable. their reunion tour in 1987 (taking advantage of the first big 60s nostalgia trip) was the first concert i ever attended. "Weird Al" Yankovic opened and this geeky 12-year old was in heaven. but i digress.

i suppose what i would be interested to know is how the reviewer would feel if the knew that the Monkees have remained popular and that some of their songs (Clarksville, I'm A Believer, Pleasant Valley Sunday) have become "classics", even among the musical literati. i guess probably the same way i feel knowing that Smashmouth will likely be more popular in 40 years than most of the music that i love.

Posted by Jamie at 06:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

while the Yankees and Angels play today i was thinking that the Angels have a high number of non-Hispanic black players with guys like Chone Figgins, Garret Anderson, Howie Kendrick, Gary Matthews, Jr and Reggie Willits. then they show Reggie Willits and he's white. this isn't the first time i've made this mistake with him, and it might not be the last. "Reggie Willits" just sounds like a black guy - can that be considered racial profiling? i think he definitely qualifies as one of the "Reggie Cleveland All-Stars". Brandon Larson is another guy that i thought was black for a long time as well, and if i had been cognizant during the 70s, then Cecil Upshaw probably would have been right there as well. of course it works both ways with guys like Troy O'Leary (or Howie Kendrick for that matter).

this reminds me of a fun game that Listmaker, Balgavy, ec and i played on the way to our fantasy baseball draft in March. Listmaker would call out a name at random from the Baseball America Prospect Handbook and then we had to guess whether they were black or white. it was pretty hard, though i think Balgavy only missed 1 or 2 total. but we were all thrown off when Joba Chamberlain came up. he's a recent Yankees draftee from the University of Nebraska. and he's a Native American. we didn't see that one coming (and in all honesty, he looks white).

Posted by Jamie at 03:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

after my busiest season of the year at work, i finally got some time to spend with my old friend the internet over the weekend. as usual, s/he (has the internet been assigned a preferred gender yet? i think it needs one) didn't disappoint. cf. this article from Flak about vasectomy. i'll spare you the gory details, especially of the horrifying "Scenario 2" but i will share this amusing paragraph:

The premise is simple enough. Impregnation happens when sperm travels through a pair of tubes from the testicles to the penis and hence, now carried in a viscous fluid, into a woman who loves Daddy very much. By severing each of these tubes, called a vas deferens (plural: vas deferentia), the sperm is prevented from carrying out its mission, sexual congress is decoupled from reproduction and the Pope cries in his muesli. Another victory for science and reason over nature.

that prompted me to send the link to my brother who underwent the dreaded procedure last year. (side note: his first offspring now has his own blog which can be found here and updated daily so far. proud uncle that i am, i think it's more entertaining than about 98% of what's out there, including what you are now reading.) i hadn't really talked to him about it at all, but he sent along some details. those with strong stomachs can read on after the jump. the squeamish will be better off just reading Flak's review of Domino's Brooklyn-style pizza.

yowsa...yeah pretty close to my experience although i had door #1 and not that horrifying door #2. i didn't even know that was a possibility. there were some differences - i wasn't asked to shave ahead of time but he did give me a little touch up while i straddled a trash can. i also didn't get the room of many pleasures and instead had to get the sample at home and bring it to the hospital lab. i was really hoping for the pornography room but no luck. plus i had to get 2 samples with no action before getting the thumbs up to begin my life as a non-reproducer.

the weekend was terrible. the pain was bad and i wasn't informed about the need for snug underwear so i had a bit of a sore week afterwards as well. i was also given a small bit of percoset for the pain, which i took, and ended having a terrible reaction to and vomiting and vomiting and vomiting all night then being cold and achy and miserable for 2 days. thanks pharmaceuticals! i swear i threw up more food than i had eaten. it was crazy. also there was no cauterizing, instead he ties each side back so they don't end up refusing themselves together and creating little junior. i asked him how i'd be sure they wouldn't go back together, "do i give a sample every year to make sure." "no" he replied. i guess we'd find out the hard way.

the nausea during the process is dead on. i thought i wanted to know exactly what he was doing the whole time, because that's what bugs me about the dentist, i have no idea what they're up to in there. but as he was describing it and i felt a tug and heard a snip i instantly got incredibly woozy, sweating, ready to blow but he called the nurse and she gave me a cool compress and we ended up chatting about nonsense once i realised i really didn't want to know what he was up to. i'm not one who freaked about the idea of someone "messing with my manliness" but the mental image of him cutting through tubes and stuffing those thing back inside me was a little overwhelming. a bizarre and tough experience which was no fun but i would recommend wholly since it was really only a week of discomfort and that was it. modern science is incredible.

Posted by Jamie at 10:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)