A Charlie Sheen Rant

Right now (as I write this) Charlie Sheen is on TV saying a whole ton of crazy stuff. And I'm not watching. Purposefully. I don't care about Charlie Sheen's personal life. I don't care that he loves cocaine. I don't care that he loves strippers and porn stars. I. Don't. Care. I'm proud to say I'm ignoring what is being made out to be a disaster/spectacle of an interview on CNN right now. I've never understood the fascination people have with the private lives of celebrities. I don't care if they do a ton of drugs or cheat on their significant others. I don't care who they date, what they wear, what their kids look like, what they did to their hair or any other similar useless bit of information.

Unless they murder someone or it turns out they're a pedophile, I don't care. I'm tired of seeing all this being conveyed as newsworthy by legitimate news organizations. Yeah, I know it gets them ratings and it's what a lot of stupid people want to see, but is it worth sacrificing your credibility as a news outlet? Please give me the news back. You know, the news where they talk about stuff that's actually important. Like what's going on in Libya or Bahrain. Or that protest in Wisconsin. I hear that what's going on in the cheese state is, as Joe Biden might say, a big deal.

But no, I'm stuck with Charlie Sheen. Sorry to rant like this but no one is shutting up about him. If Charlie Sheen wants to act out The Hangover quote about being a one-man wolf pack looking for cocaine and strippers, let him. But please don't put it in the same category as news and report about it day after day. In my mind, and I hope I'm not alone on this, certain media outlets have a responsibility to separate sensational stories such as Charlie Sheen from ones that actually matter and should be considered newsworthy (may I suggest the story about the House GOP proposing a budget plan that would cost 700,000 jobs?). But maybe I'm just a naive idealist.

Until next time, Orange Hat Guy

Holden Caulfield, Rock Critic

So I recently heard a friend mention how he didn't know the difference between Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, citing them both as "old," and this bothered me a bit. I understand if the type of music these two bands play don't appeal to you (but I will hold it against you because they're both fantastic bands), but don't write off a band simply because of their age. Especially if you've never listened to them.

Nothing's going to change my world, Nothing's going to change my world

I happen to be a huge fan of these so-called "older" bands, partially because they've made some fantastic music and because it's what I was raised on. You can thank (or blame) my parents for imparting in me the spirit of rock and roll that is Bruce Springsteen. His first album can out in 1971, the same time as Led Zeppelin IV (one of the best albums of all time, in my opinion), and even though it's been forty years since it came out, listening to it never gets old.

I am the world's forgotten boy, The one who searches and destroys

His next several albums were also just as fantastic. The Wild, The Innocent And The E Street Shuffle, released in 1972, is one of the most underrated and under-appreciated albums ever, and if you have some time on your hands I advise you to give it a listen. I actually think it's better than 1975's Born To Run as a whole, even though Born To Run has some better songs. And then there's "Racing In the Street" on Darkness On The Edge Of Town from 1978. You can't write a better song than that.

Acting funny and I don't know why, Excuse me while I kiss the sky

I think it's my love of Bruce that's led me to fall in love with other bands from the 1960s and 1970s and help shape my view on rock in general. Discovering these older bands has always been fun because one of the things that interests me when it comes to music is understanding where it fits in historically, because it's inherently unfair to compare The Beatles to a band like Coldplay.

And as we wind on down the road, Our shadows taller than our soul

Part of this approach stems from what you might call the "Holden Caulfield Test" I have for music. This so-called test is basically my own subjective belief of whether or not bands are (you guessed it) phonies (or sellouts/commercial-first/whatever you call a band like Nickelback). I completely understand that this is in no way a foolproof way to judge the quality of the music, but I'm probably not the only one that applies this test on most of the music they listen to.

Show a little faith there's magic in the night, You ain't a beauty but hey you're alright

It's this test that these old bands tend to pass. It was hard to be a sellout when there was nothing or no one to sell out to. A perfect example of this is The Velvet Underground. Listening to them, you can just tell that they cared about making good music and wouldn't sacrifice that just to get on the radio. Listen to the 1967 album The Velvet Underground And Nico and if you don't think it's bleeding artistry one thousand times more than commercialism, you're deaf.

If I ventured into the slipstream, Between the viaducts of your dream

The same can be said for Jimi Hendrix. Give a listen to Are You Experienced? and tell me there isn't something special about that album that can't be put into words. Bob Dylan is another great example. By today's standards, Dylan is an awful singer. But he's a wonder songwriter and after watching him perform at this year's Grammys, it's shocking how much he stands out from today's music. He was so much more real and genuine than almost everyone else at the show.

Kiss the boot of shiny shiny leather, Shiny leather in the dark

It's this sincere quality to the music that draws me to artists such as Van Morrison and Iggy Pop. Listening to Astral Weeks is like a drug: it transports you to another plane, and for 45 minutes there's nothing else I'd rather be doing than being swept away by the Irishman. This quality is also what attracts me to protopunk bands such as The Stooges, New York Dolls and MC5. Knowing that these guys were doing it before everyone else lends them (at least in my eyes) artistic credibility that a lot of bands today lack.

The time is gone the song is over, Though I'd something more to say

Take a listen to the eponymous The Stooges (1969) or Raw Power (1973) by Iggy And The Stooges or Kick Out The Jams (1969) by MC5, who had the audacity to release this, their first album, as a live album, and tell me these albums don't also capture something beyond just the music. They have that indescribable thing that goes beyond the lyrics or the notes. It's that thing that "I Wanna Be Your Dog" has. It's that thing that "Kick Out The Jams" has.

There must be some kind of way out of here, Said the joker to the thief

And of course there's The Beatles. No discussion of rock music can be considered complete without talking about the fab four. I'll be honest and say I don't care much for their early work (Please Please Me through Help) because it's mostly nothing but love songs but once that phase ended, they showed just how great they were. Rubber Soul through Let It Be pretty much established The Beatles as simply the best. Rubber Soul, fantastic. Revolver, fantastic. Magical Mystery Tour, fantastic. Sgt. Peppers, groundbreaking. The White Album, fantastic. Abbey Road, fantastic. Let It Be, fantastic.

Out here in the fields, I fought for my meals, I don't need to be forgiven

I don't understand people who would shake off The Beatles simply because their some old band from all the way back in the '60s. People like that don't have my respect when it comes to their taste in music. And I think it stems from the fact that we're quite spoiled today by 1960s standards. Back then The Beatles were limited with what they could do from a sound standpoint. But today, thanks to all the developments in technology, we can perfect someone's pitch and artificially create music.

Hello darkness my old friend, I've come to talk with you again

Because we're spoiled, we tend to overlook the simpler, more elementary song-writing of the 1960s. There is just so much out there that it can be easy to become desensitized to it all. And there's such a wide range of styles today that The Beatles don't always stand out against them sound-wise. And this ties into what I said about comparing Coldplay to The Beatles: context matters. Both are great bands but it's like comparing apples to oranges.

Kick out the jams, Motherf****r!

Now just to be clear, I don't hate new bands. I just don't happen to listen to a lot bands that didn't exist until after 2000. I've also never been much of a fan of pop or hip-hop, both of which have become immensely popular during the last decade as well as having been the predominant forms of music to receive substantial radio airplay (though I will admit I've never listened to much radio). Part of this has to do with the fact that I simply don't like the sound (or "feel") of those styles, but also because now there are a lot of sellouts and artists who have nowhere near the artistic integrity (those phonies!) of bands like Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd.

Bye bye Miss American Pie, Drove my Chevy to the levy, But the levy was dry

There's a quote of Bruce Springsteen that I think sums this up perfectly: "More than rich or famous, I wanted to be great." That's the standard I hold most bands to. That's why Bruce Springsteen will always remain one of my favorite artists of all time, because I don't think there are enough musicians out there with this frame of mind. And until that changes, I will enjoy my old people music.

Lord I can't change, Won't you fly high, Free bird

Until next time, Orange Hat Guy

The Next Super Bowl Halftime Show

If watched the Super Bowl two weeks ago, you were witness to a truly awful halftime show. I mean spectacularly bad, and in front of over one hundred million people. The Black Eyed Peas, perhaps the most unpopular popular band in the world, took away fifteen minutes of my life I'll never have back in what could only be described as "Tron: The Musical." I don't want this to happen again.

So here are some bands that I think should be considered by the NFL to perform at the next Super Bowl halftime show:

Bon Jovi – I've never really listened to Bon Jovi, but they're one of the biggest rock bands in the world and it's impossible to go to a game in any sport without hearing "Livin On A Prayer." I realize that song gets overplayed, but at least it's rock and connected to sports. The better halftime shows I remember have always had rock bands and I'd like to see the Super Bowl return to that.

Coldplay – They're a favorite of mine and fit the bill of being both popular, talented and can rock. If they can replicate the energy that U2 had when they played the halftime show a decade ago, that'd be fifteen minutes of my time well-spent.

Kanye West – I'm not a lover of hip-hop, but after listening to his last three albums, I'm sold on his talent. However, after seeing how the Black Eyed Peas performed as well as taking into account Kanye's ego, I do worry about how the halftime show might be executed ("Tron: The Musical II: Electric Boogaloo").

Pearl Jam – I love Eddie Vedder and I think Pearl Jam could flourish a big stage like the Super Bowl. When you consider how well other rockers have done recently (Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty), Pearl Jam could fill their shoes admirably without being considered an aging rock and roll act (The Who and Paul McCartney).

R.E.M. – Michael Stipe and company are just a good rock band. Sure, I have no idea what half their songs are about, but I think it'd be a fantastic sight to see one hundred million people try and sing along to "It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)."

Radiohead – It's the band everyone loves (even those awful hipsters) and they also have a new album coming out this year. But would Thom Yorke care at all about performing at the Super Bowl?

Robert Plant and Jimmy Page – It's probably an extreme long shot, but as a huge Led Zeppelin fan I think it would be amazing to see these two titans reunite. Yet after seeing how poorly The Who did, would the NFL take a chance at another halftime show dud by booking two aging rockers?

Until next time, Orange Hat Guy

Dollhouse

Sunday night (or more precisely Monday morning) I finished watching the second and last season of Dollhouse, a television show created by God (and by God I mean Joss Whedon, duh). Though it only lasted two seasons (of course it got canceled, it's a Joss Whedon show; what do you expect?) it had a well thought-out premise and a clear direction that lent itself to a satisfying series resolution despite having a short time to do it in.

The premise for Dollhouse is as follows: all around the world are secret facilities known as "dollhouses," which are run by a pharmaceutical company called Rossum, where people who either volunteer or suffer serious mental health issues are used essentially as human puppets. These people have their minds scanned and stored in portable hard drives (I'm simplifying the show's tech terminology) before being completely erased from their brains so that other personalities and artificially constructed minds can be downloaded into the person's brain.

Super rich clients can then make certain purchases with different "dolls" wherein the dolls can have any personality and be anyone the client wants for a specific period of time (a weekend, a month, etc.) and be willing to do anything that client wants. These encounters can be romantic, get a task done with no questions asked or without going to the authorities (such as a hostage negotiator or forensic investigator), substitute for someone else or anything else the client chooses as long as the head of the specific dollhouse allows it.

The show follows one specific doll, Echo, played by Eliza Dushku. Echo was originally a woman named Caroline, but we are not given the details how Caroline becomes a doll, at least initially. As the show progresses, we learn that some of the dolls are not in the dollhouse by choice, as is normally the case, thus opening up one of the many moral dilemmas the show brings up.

The rest of the characters include two other dolls, Victor and Sierra, who have a natural attraction to each other even after they are completely wiped of all memories, Boyd Langdon, Echo's "handler (essentially a bodyguard hired by the dollhouse to look over Echo when she is out on an encounter), FBI agent Paul Ballard, who is trying to bring down the dollhouse despite it being considered a myth, Adelle DeWitt, who runs the LA dollhouse the show centers around, and Topher Brink, a brilliant scientist who helps develop a lot of the technology used by the dollhouse.

The show does start out a little slow (stand-alone episodes that don't move the show's plot forward but do outline what a doll does when on an encounter and how a doll functions), but if you can make it through the first half of season one (by the way, there are only thirteen episodes a season) the show begins to hit its stride. At first it may seem like the show seem like an excuse to show a nearly naked Eliza Dushku in every episode, but the show does evolve beyond that (not that there's anything wrong with that).

The major turning point is when Alpha, an escaped doll who can recall memories of the personalities that were supposedly wiped from his brain, reappears and kidnaps Echo. After her encounter with Alpha, we find out that Echo also gains the ability to recall memories from the personalities she has been while on encounters, thus creating a permanent personality that turns Echo into a unique individual. Echo is no longer a designation, Echo is a person, mentally evolving as the show itself evolves.

This evolution is one of the critical parts of Dollhouse. The show opens up a Pandora's box of philosophical and moral questions that I find fascinating and is part of the reason it became one of my favorite shows. The show does a good job of presenting them, either directly or indirectly, but does not answer them. Dollhouse leaves it up to the viewer whether or not what goes on is ethical or humane.

Is Echo a person? And if so, what should be done about Echo when Caroline's contract is up and her mind is supposed to be returned to her body? What happens to Caroline's mind if her body is destroyed? Should a person be allowed to have their mind scanned and copied so that in the event of their death they can return in another body? What does this mean for mortality? Should this technology even be allowed to exist?

Then there are the more philosophical questions concerning the self and identity. How do we define what is a person? Is it the body or the mind? Both? Are you still yourself if your mind is in a different body? Again Dollhouse does not directly answer these questions, instead letting the viewer form their own interpretations about self-identity. This is what I like in a tv show: when you're not given the answer, either because there is no right answer or because it'd be no fun if they did.

Joss Whedon loves to bring big issues such as these to his shows as a way to explore them in a creative fashion. Buffy dealt with fate, Angel with redemption, Firefly with existentialism and Dollhouse with identity. The one weakness that I can find with Dollhouse is the lack of depth for some of the characters. We never really get enough background (partially due to there being only two seasons) on several of the main characters, and this drags them all down a bit.

We never really learn about Topher's past, why he agrees to work for the dollhouse or any moral justifications for what he does. Ditto for Adelle DeWitt. We never learn how she got her role as head of the LA dollhouse or where her moral compass comes from. These are crucial details that would help greatly in defining just how these characters became who they are when we meet them. And when we first meet Echo, it's hard to sympathize for her given how little we know about how she became a doll.

Acting, conversely, is one of the show's strong characteristics. Eliza Dushku, Enver Gjokaj and Dichen Lachman all do terrific jobs as dolls and having to portray dozens of different characters with a wide variety of personalities. Olivia Williams, as DeWitt, has a strong presence onscreen and brings a lot of depth to a character that is not given a whole lot. Fran Kranz is simply brilliant as Topher Brink and Harry Lennix does a good job as Echo's handler, Boyd Langdon. Tahmoh Penikett as Paul Ballard is my least favorite actor, mostly due to the fact that he delivers all his lines in the exact same tone of voice. The supporting cast is great as well, with recurring characters played by Amy Acker, Alan Tudyk, Alexis Denisof and Summer Glau.

Ultimately though, the key to watching and appreciating Dollhouse is having to think about what the implications are of there being such a world like the one on the show. On one level, Dollhouse is about the development and evolution of Echo. But at a deeper level, Dollhouse is about what it means to be ourselves and how we deal with the dark side of technological advancement.

(Note: I don't want rail against technology; I love my iPod and I think advancements in technology are extremely helpful in moving society forward. A problem arises when advancements in science and technology can be (and are) used improperly. But I'm not interested in getting into a Michael Chrichton-like debate about whether we are prepared to deal with all the advancements we make and the implications that come with them)

Until next time, Orange Hat Guy

Snowmagedden/Iceocalypse/THUNDERSNOW

I think THUNDERSNOW is now my new favorite word. It is so impressive that I feel it needs to be in all caps whenever it is written. It sounds that awesome, especially when said aloud. Go ahead and say it. THUNDERSNOW. It is kind of hard to say it without resorting to a deep voice reminiscent of heavy metal vocalists. THUNDERSNOW (one more just for good measure).

I was not actually in Chicago to witness this awesome-sounding phenomenon, but I heard about it from friends and family. I am quite disappointed I missed it because I love snow storms and sadly I did not get to experience a blizzard here in Bloomington. But I did live through Iceocalypse 2011 at IU. And that did manage to cancel most of my classes for the better part of two days. I guess that is not too bad.

But what was Iceocalypse 2011? Pretty much the entire city of Bloomington was covered in ice, from streets to sidewalks to tree branches. By Tuesday afternoon the city had shut down its public offices and IU canceled all classes through the next morning, and that was later extended through Wednesday afternoon. So in case you are keeping score, that is six classes canceled for me.

Talk about a weekend in the middle of the week. One test got pushed back to next week and so did a rough draft for an essay. Have I mentioned I love ice storms? But it was not all perfect. Taking even three steps outside my dorm put me at risk of slipping and falling and hurting and suffering and dying. And starving. The places that sold food closed early, leaving me to somehow ration a couple of bags of chips, a jar of nutella and two snack bars.

And contemplating cannibalism, which leads me to this question: who do you cannibalize first, the fat guy or the annoying guy? Think about it. Both have their merits. The fat guy has ample amounts of meat to last you a while as well as the option to be a make-shift Tauntaun in case your building loses heat. The annoying guy will finally shut the hell up and that pretty much is the only justification you need to cannibalize him. Maybe if you are extra lucky the fat guy will also be the annoying guy.

Anyway, I was able to make the Cheetos last so there was no need for cannibalism. But that is ok, I will store that plan away until the the next Iceocalypse. And then there was a fire alarm. Yup, another fire alarm. Remember how much I love those? Well this was number eleven. Eleven. ELEVEN. Or three, if you are counting in binary.

For some reason I went outside in shorts and flip-flops because I am just that awesome/incredibly stupid/too lazy to dress warmly. As it turns out, if you leave your toes exposed for more than five minutes in temperatures below twenty (or six, if you are counting in ternary), they go numb. Like I said, I am just that awesome/stupid/too lazy to dress warmly. But I prefer to blame the fire alarm. The eleventh fire alarm. ELEVENTH (don't worry, no counting in quaternary here).

So yeah, that has been the extent of Iceocalypse 2011. It has been cold and slippery and a fantastic opportunity to sleep in as late you want to. Also, if I ever start a heavy metal band I will definitely call it THUNDERSNOW.

Until next time, Orange Hay Guy

THUNDERSNOW!