This is the second installment of the Pop Therapy series, and apparently the shoe is now on the other foot. If you’re lucky, like I sometimes am, and find yourself wearing a pair of those Karl Lagerfelds and needed an excuse for just one last dance down memory lane kicking up your heels the entire way (bang bang!!), well here’s a  soundtrack to set your interpretive dance routine to.

For this self healing journey I unprofessionally recommend bringing your favorite hairbrush to sing and scream into. Let the emotions rise up like an embittered sour dough and then when you’re all worked up and a hot hot mess, enjoy being able to give a toast to the memories. And that’s it. Just the memories because if you and the significant other broke up it was because the relationship was broken to begin with.

We’re classy consumers over here so the next stop for anything broken is naturally the dump. Toss it all out. Or burn it down. I know I did. And they’ll never be able to pin it on me because I know enough not to use accelerants nor to burn a pair of Nikes in a bathtub.

This program is a 12 step because, well, getting dumped sucks a lot more than having to break up with someone- the shit end of the stick always stinks, let’s face it, and that requires at least 2 more steps if not more. So here are the tracks and below them a link to the .zip file. This time it’s for free because when someone flips you and the ‘relationship’ the bird, and leaves you all alone sometimes you have to give in order to realize that you are fine how you are, and if you can provide for others, you can definitely provide for yourself and make it on your own. Or something.

1. Truce – The Dresden Dolls
2. Destroy Everything You Touch – Ladytron
3. Killing A Boy – Melody Club
4. Blue Monday – New Order
5. Despicable Whore – Cyanide Valnetine
6. I Don’t Give A Fuck – Peaches
7. What Else Is There – Röyksopp
8. All That Bad – Lifestyle
9. You Don’t Really Love Me – Cyanide Valentine
10. Thank You For Nothing – Kleerup
11. On My Own Again – Kleerup
12. Happy Without You – Annie

Download available via Mega Upload

You aren’t alone because you have us, your Teletypists, and together we can work it out. Those of us in the lonely hearts club, as much as we shun the Beatles, are really better off alone than in a relationship that probably wasn’t going to go much further. And now, it’s a little more peaceful without the screaming and fighting and hopefully this mix can offer a means to begin your own self-healing journey.

Hugs,

-Ian Drinkwater

You are what you eat- in this case: secretly red on the inside.

Yesterday was Free Ice Cream Day at my place of employment, and for that moment the raging, red flag flying Socialist in me relented and instead my inner human buried under all the crap of adult life enjoyed the impressionistic and subjective experience of Good Humor’s classic Strawberry Shortcake. It was probably the best thing I’ve eaten all week. Of course I had all sorts of choices at my disposal, the drumstick, chocolate eclair, fudgsicle… no, the choice was obvious and clear. It had to be the Strawberry Shortcake, as I was still previously recovering from the previous night’s ice cream binge of a veritable mountain of triple chocolate ice cream from the less frequented but equally good ice cream shop in town. It was fantastic.

In other, sadly non-ice-cream-related developments, my friend Erik is departing his homeland of Sverige and taking some time to study at my Alma Mater’s business school. I am very pleased with this, and it seems that he is as well. Superb! A friend from far away will be in my neck of the world for a while, and I’ll finally get some one to whom I can get sound business advice from. Stocks? Bonds? Which is really the right choice?Maybe a mutual fund instead? See, this is why I contribute to a pop culture blog, and not Forbes Magazine. But for a little bit I’ll get to host him. So welcome to America, Erik. Home of the free, the brave, and the econopocalypse- Bernanke say’s we’ve hit bottom, we can only go up from there, MBAs ahoy!!

I guess we’ll never know if beer really did fix racism in post-racism America since it wasn’t filmed. Of course the AP had to have a field day with this story. Red, Light and Blue?? Really? Really?! Interrobang?! You guys are ridiculous. You see, this is why print media is going down the toilet, because of shameless puns on any and every story. Either help newspapers sell more ad space and/or increase circulation numbers. Third rate word jokes at the top of what was an interesting story just won’t cut it.

Old news, but Teletypewriter relevant news: Sarah Palin, she’s a quitter!

You betcha!

2012! 2012! I guess I’m “sad” (since I will no longer be politically horrified/entertained) to see her depart the politcal arena, but anxious and excited to see which piece of media air space she’ll choose next to rear her head in. Hunting celebrities from a private helicopter in LA? The American public would pay great money to see that. Either way anything else could only be a step up. Mayber her own late night comedy block or she could even make guest contributions on Boing Boing or… wait… …maybe wordpress?

(Sarah if you’re reading this, email us!! )

Recently I returned from a brief jaunt across the Atlantic Ocean and North Sea to the best little Scandinavian country ever- Sweden. Way back when I was still studying at the University of Massachusetts* I was in a study abroad program with Uppsala University. It was there that I made a lot of quality friends while certainly not drinking an obscene amount, nor dancing far too often. It helped that I spent a good chunk of time that with Kalmar Nation, the premier music oriented student collective/co-ed fraternity/student business/social club.

Kalmar Nation garnered this reputation gradually over time by making it a dedicated point to invite forefront independent music acts from across Sweden and Europe. These artists also had a knack of being exceptionally awesome and had a tendency to produce wicked catchy songs. So it was during this time abroad in a foreign land that my personal interest in the refinement of my Pop Palate fully coalesced. However it was upon this recent revisitation that I found myself in a very auspicious position. Like a prospective vintner accidentally finding themselves at Château-Margaux, I aurally consumed and digested nearly everything I could this time around. Call it pop music withdrawal if you want- if I had a real therapist, and not this blog, I’m sure they would call it a withdrawal. 

Colombia is the world’s largest producer of cocaine. Afghanistan, opium. Sweden? Sweden is the world’s largest exporter of illicit Pop Music. Their research and development let loose on the world ABBA, The Cardigans, Ace of Base, The Knife, Eric Prydz and many others which have left one too many a hot mess at last call on the dance floor. 

Thus in light of my own developmental interests, downright pop addiction, and the disheartening legal defeat of The Pirate Bay in the Swedish court systems I would like to engage you with a radical usurpation of the collective Pop Hegemony and share with you what treasures the viking-blooded Swedes have been hoarding for themselves. Together we will break the unspoken 2-3 year EU mandated delay in trend exportation to the US from any EU represented nation-state. 

Dear RIAA, (Intellectual) Property is theft.

Familjen

1. Det Snurrar I Min Skalle
2. Huvudet I Sanden

Fibes, Oh Fibes

1. It Can’t Be So
2. This City’s Got No Boulevards

Håkan Hellström

1. Ramlar
2. En Midsommarsnattsdröm

Juvelen

1. Hanna
2. Don’t Mess

Kleerup

1. With Every Heartbeat (feat. Robyn)
2. Thank You For Nothing

Kristian Antilla

1. Smutser
   
2. Hård Godis

I realize after I’ve linked all these videos that this entry falls a little bit in the same vein as the Valerie Cherie entry. They also have a few new artists on their blog, so you ought to check them out. I also had a few other artists and songs I wanted to share that weren’t Swedish but I thought I would hold onto those for another time. They would make for good discussion matter at another time since we’re now going to have to wrap up this session of Pop Therapy. Feel free to schedule another time to meet in the field below. 

*A warm welcome to the post-undergrad world while simultaneously moving to congratulate our own Desirée Rambunctious on the following: her extreme dispatching of the philosophy thesis, subsequent commencement, and professional lemonade development skills. Great work, kid!!

So to catch you up on the past month and a half that we spent lovingly neglecting this corner of the ‘tubes I give you the quick and nasty via blurb style recapitulation. 

Desirée Rambunctious: She took a x-country trip to another ocean for a brief get away, and came back enthralled and refreshed. She’s been reading and writing a lot and occasionally dreaming about Edward Cullen when not engrossed in The Thesis. Hot, sparkling Edward Cullen on Lord Russ* action. Who are having hot simultaneous make outs with MIA. Bang, bang, bang indeed. Here, I decided to represent these fantastical musings á la Photoshop: 

-INSERT WITTY PHILOSOPHICAL COMMENTARY HERE-

Ian Drinkwater: Werkin’ like a merkin & hanging in there. He’s got a trip to Europe and Scandinavia coming up, so he’s looking forward to that. Stockholm Ahoy!! Quidditch is back in season so the washes have been muddier than usual. The new broom has been great so far- really sturdy, quality workmanship. He made it himself. That shit be custom. He’s also been savoring this brief chance to write in the third person. 

*Lord Russ, a local personality is getting ready for the re-opening of his musical Queen Elvis. This show explores the parallel reality where Elvis Presley is a transvestite. Written and Produced by Lord Russ, this show is at the Center for the Arts. Saturday, April 18, 2009. Show starts at 8:00 p.m. $12.00 Tickets at the door or in advance. Be a local hero; shop local. 

From Mr. Russ’ myspace: “This will be the last area performance for the foreseeable future, so don’t miss it. I will be taking “Queen Elvis – The Musical” to Miami, when I relocate there in May.”

For more info, call 413.584.7327. Or visit www.nohoarts.org.

(caution: personal opinions and spoilers ahead)

THE SET UP:

I hadn’t the chance to see this when it first hit theaters in limited release. However it’s showing in the area was brought to my attention last week. Tickets were reserved and I was looking forward very much to a movie much applauded by friends who had the chance to see it in the more major cities. The viewing destination was the Tower Theaters down in South Hadley, which hosts and houses a very fine Rocky Horror shadow cast, the Come Again Players, who put on a great show every Saturday.

We were taking in a midnight show since it was the only time they offered. Not a problem really. However I began to have doubts about the quality of the experience I might have as soon as I got to the top of the stairs and opened the door. Wall to wall, floor to ceiling RHPS scenesters (red flag#1). Everywhere. Bouncy and giddy over a great film, or so I was desperately trying to bank on.

Front section seats, soda, and a few minutes later a few people took the stage bringing in the good news that REPO! would be staying or another week at the Tower Theaters, and if the numbers stayed high, it would become a regular Friday feature at midnight, complete with it’s own shadow cast (red flag #2). The film was introduced and a fairly courteous theater official who must have seen the few and far between patrons who weren’t done up in corsets, bondage pants, trench coats or in head to toe black, at least tried to give some warning in his minor PSA: “If you don’t know what call lines are, you’ll probably find out as you watch this. But for the sake of everyone, let’s try to keep them to a minimum” (red flad #3).

Cue houselights, projector switch over, and the film began. And it was good. For a whole little bit. And then the call lines started. I don’t personally care if a bad movie is made fun of. I do it all the time at home with Aliens, Pretty In Pink, Cloverfield… but it’s another thing entirely when it’s done at a theater. It is a culturally excluding practice, a ritual, especially when done en masse. Thus striking a fairly clear analogy to the call and response of Blues, or a Catholic mass. When done in a theater, it’s also loud and obstructing of the movie’s soundtrack, of which parts I caught found to be quite good. But what wasn’t so great were the low quality paragraph long call lines that petered out and weren’t relevant. Ex-president Bush? Irrelevant. Lifted, uninspired Rocky call lines? Doubly irrelevant. There is an entire night set aside for that! Leave it at Rocky! Get creative!! If you’re going to interrupt something that a lot of people still haven’t seen, at least make it funny, to the point, and conducive to what is going in the film that is currently on screen.

Less about the Accessories, more about the Movie:

A basic synopsis reveals a very large corporation that rises to economic, politcal, and cultural power in the event of a chronic and mysterious bout of mass organ failure which they just so happen to have the solutions to: replacement organs and a very convenient pricing plan. Fall behind on the payments though, and you’re likely to have that heart, lung or spleen repossessed by none other than Repoman. He’s a souped up surgeon looking fellow with very sharp knives and an enthusiasm for his job that most middle managers have wet dreams about.

Let me break it down bullet style though.

• Shilo has Dead Mom and Repoman Daddy issues.
• GeneCo CEO has Shitty Children Syndrome (SCS in DSM IV)
• Drama ensues as GeneCo CEO and Shilo interact.

or maybe let’s try Internet Logic.

Pavi Largo/GeneCo CEO:

1. Patch up long lost daughter connections.
2. Kill long lost daughter’s fake RepoDad.
3. …
4. PROFIT!

Shilo Wallace:

1. Get poisoned by fake RepoDad.
2. Rock out with Blind Mag and/or Joan Jett.
3. …
4. PROFIT!!

That doesn’t work out so well either. But great visuals through out the entire film. I love the nods to previous cyberpunk films director Darren Lynn Bousman took the time to richly salute. Primarily the airship telebillboards of Blind Mag who is this films version of Ridley Scott’s/Blade Runner’s Saucy Pill Eating Geisha (SPEG in DSM IV). The visual setting is dark but neon, glamorous and gothic, barren yet sumptuous. I had a hard on for the work that the Director of Photography and Set Designer of REPO! must have labored over the entire time.

Also, smoking hot nurses in short uniforms with mile long legs and massive breasts have redeemed the nurse archetype that Silent Hill had driven towards the Pavlovian response of: pinched-bottom gasping result in shat pants. But fear no more as nurses are sexy again, in as so much that they’ll only supply the knives that will ultimately kill you, and not be the ones that are actually stabbing you in the face.

ALL THIS AND A SHOW TOO!? HOLY SHIT!

Yes, this movie comes with music because it was a musical first. It’s even in the subtitle: THE GENETIC OPERA. It’s done in polyphonic operatic style with wonderful layering and clumsy but forgivable lyrics. Oh and there’s a Sarah Brightman in it too. Who sings. As Bling Mag. Who ultimately claws out her own GeneCo Eyes who then falls dramatically and mortally onto a Victorian inspired partition which resulted in the ONLY funny call line the entire night. Scene: Dead Mag impaled on wrought iron. Call line: A: “How does Blind Mag feel about abortion?” B: “…She’s on the fence.”

But back to the main point of this: the songs are highly enjoyable and set to a modern interpretation to the operatic style, done in a talented combination of rock and awesome.

The (Nervous) Breakdown:

-If you enjoy the opinions of others and their desperate cry for help and attention; consider seeing this at a theater near you. It will probably have REPO!groupies and no sexy REPO!nurses, so you’ve been warned.

-If you want to be able to hear the soundtrack and be able to follow the spoken plot of the film; consider renting it and watching it at a friend’s house who has a kick ass A/V system. And then see it at a theater.

-If you don’t like opera, but still like any of the following: great design, cyberpunk fashion, Paris Hilton, Sarah Brightman, blood & gore, sexy nurses, depicted drug abuse, impalation, or dead mom drama; consider seeing it.

The movie gets 4 Handclaps.

The experience got 2 Joanas.

Average: 1 Handclap + sexy nurses.

I looked up and, there he was, clutching two beverages, one in each hand. In the right hand: a mug of warm, stale “Coke Zero.” In the left: a can of Papst Blue Ribbon (aka PBR, also known locally as “PB-AAAAAAAAH”).

The question for you, dear readers, is…which is worse for our dear Mr. Drinkwater?

So fresh and so clean clean

I always thought that the people who wrote the self-help stuff for college students and people in crisis where either full of shit or a bunch of wusses when they would suggest that, when stressed or distressed, one should brew a cup of tea or “take a hot bath.” I typically interpreted such suggestions as an avoidance of real human angst/suffering on the part of the author. I don’t think I would write a very good self-help book. It would probably be full of things like: 

Your anxieties are actually based on some sort of truth, “real” or perceived. 

Call an analyst. 

Self-medicate (choose your own adventure: brownies, marijuana, or nicotine/tobacco. Alcohol should always be avoided: it is far too dehydrating.).

Get angry at whatever or whoever put you in this mood. 

Listen to gangster rap.

Read more philosophy.

Taking a bath seemed so trite and such an empty-signifier of a suggestion to offer someone who was in some sort of duress…

…until now.

Just so we are clear: I am a chronic shower-taker. I make it my personal mission to have a well-stocked shower and I keep similar-minded company. Between Mr. Drinkwater and I, there are at least 5 different kinds of shampoo, 3 different face-washes, 4 different body-cleansers, and a vast array of shaving accessories in our teensy tiny bathroom. I cannot remember the last time I took a bath – my guess is that I was somewhere in the ballpark of 6 years old. 

My feeling is that showers are far more time-efficient and are actually more hygienic than baths. To me, sitting in small pool a of one’s own filth-water seems counter-productive to the idea of “clean.” Also, bubble baths are not good for ladies.

Tonight, for some reason, I got the idea to take a bath. I had already showered for the day…but I think it was a combination of being quite cold and having some severely un-moisturized skin that prompted my sudden interest in the tub. I decided outright that my mission in the tub was going to be to experience the “bath” experience rather than make any attempt at getting clean. There is no way to convince me that that one can get cleaner taking a bath than taking a shower.

Generally speaking, I prefer water to be almost scalding when it touches my skin. Sometimes I have problems with this preference and I occasionally get nauseous in the shower from having too hot of a shower. The other day, I actually vomited after my shower and I suspect it was due to the temperature (well, I actually dry-heaved if you really want to know [which you don't] as I hadn’t eaten anything yet). I found the bath temperature initially disappointing when I first stepped into the tub – I supposed that the increased surface area of the water has an effect on my disappointment. Nevertheless, I splashed some bath-oil into the water and began to partake in this “bath” experience that I’ve heard so much about.

Naturally, I had some reading material with me. I started working my way through Blanchot’s Writing of the Disaster while taking in my surroundings. It didn’t take long until I started to feel somewhat anxious. My reading material coupled with the bright overhead light that insisted on inflicting unflattering perspectives on my body started to sour my experience of this bath. I’m not one to be prone to too much body-anxiety. In fact, I once told Mr. Drinkwater that I believed that I was “approximately 12 gym-visits and a tattoo-sleeve away from being genuine Suicide Girl material.” Alas, there was something about the bright light and the splashy water and the “disaster that took care of everything” that simply didn’t sit right with me.

I decided to put the book down and turn off the light so that the lone flickering candle could do its flickering thing in the dark. I lay there, hair in a sloppy bun, staying still, and keeping my head above the water wondering how long I would have to endure this “bath” so that I could call it a proper “bath.”

Then, somehow…I felt this strange sensation. Why do my muscles feel all soft? Why is that quiet yet persistent headache nowhere to be found? Could I be experiencing…relaxation? My, my, what a foreign experience!

Folks, I am here to inform you that baths actually do what they are believed to do: baths actually relax the body and, quite possibly, the mind. Skin in places that I can’t normally reach is now moisturized to full capacity. This. Is. Amazing.

At this point, though, I have pretty much returned to my naturally stressed-out Self, but I have retained the moisture. I think this is a good enough door-prize for me.

I fully endorse the bath. 5 fuckin’ handclaps!

Hey Durian, what's happening?

Many groups and institutions have been asking for government money in recent months in order to fend back the prevailing tide of economic hardship. Banks, financial managers, the auto and porn industries, jewelry manufacturers and even Harley Davidson have all asked the US federal system for money in order to help save their respective operations. These motions are outrightly socialist in nature, true, but the way that capitalism works is that if no one wants or needs your product, you close up the business and instead make something that the people want. It functions on the basis of a Free Market. Examplum gratis: the fresh durian market is extremely slim in this country because it is a fruit that according to Richard Sterling smells like “pig-shit, turpentine and onions, garnished with a gym sock” and not a lot of people (that we know) are into that sort of thing.

Hello, I am Escalade, and I'll be your server for the evening.

So maybe the American auto industry should have made sleeker, more fuel efficient cars at a lower cost instead of petrol devouring tankers designed to haul one middle aged man and his middle aged wife and their 2.3 Ritalin medicated children. Who are we as the general financing American public to remind a hegemonic oil dependent industry of the primary rules of engagement in the capitalist market? Or who are we to demand honesty in our economic systems? If socialist policies are going to be used to save The American Dream™ then perhaps it ought to be that stated and accepted that capitalism is not sustainable and the economic tremors we have been experiencing are it’s death throes.

Blue helmet man
Needing desperate relief
Let’s eat some E tanks.

Metal Man, aptly named
Cut me deep with your saw blade
Over and over.

Got a new upgrade;
It makes me perform better;
Ask my sister, Roll.

Dear Doctor Wily,
What to do with your steel wrench?
Answer: Screw and nut.

Light built one girl bot,
But he built many male ones;
He loves bukkake.

Peanut butter, Rush;
All over my bytes and boards.
Make me short circuit.

Roll broke up with me.
Flowers in the Attic? None.
Think I’ll X-bust her.

Zero’s pink laser
Gave me the Sigma Virus.
Deadly one night stand.

All personalities referenced are property of Keiji Inafune and Capcom, © 1987.

Above haiku are property of T. Locke and I. Drinkwater, © 2009.

I give you the shit senders.