the pop culture ramblings of a lunatic.
Personal Entry
he hath risen.
May 10th
hi everybody! we’re back online, and I’m going to have new content coming soon! in the meantime check me out on twitter, on the morelike podcast, on the monday night show, or on the 404 show!
The Top 50 Albums of the Decade (Part One)
Dec 23rd
my friends & i had an argument the other night. drunkenly slouched into the cushions of my couch I rambled about how stand up comedy, aside from zach galifinakis, is more or less dead. It was then that I was presented with an interesting question, “well dan, who is your favorite stand up comedian?” i hesitated for a moment, racked my brain, & spat out “Bill Cosby.”
it seemed too easy, pretentious even, to simply say “bill cosby.” after all, the man is a legend. i was stumped by my own psyche for a few moments. what compelled me to say “bill cosby?” it took a few minutes & another beer before I realized: bill cosby has a frame of reference. his material stands the test of time.
i think that’s an important concept when related to these bullshit “best of the 00’s” list. especially the ones that have albums from THIS FUCKING YEAR. but alas, i fuckin’ digress, y’know? because for some reason, when i couldn’t sleep last night, i opened notepad on my computer and began to frantically assemble a top ten albums of the 00’s list. i don’t know why. maybe it was the sleep deprivation. or maybe subconsciously, at the end of this decade, as the loose ends are being pulled together tight, i feel a reason to take the mosaic mish-mash of albums that i love & adore & assemble them into an organized manner that makes sense to me.
nah, fuck that. it wasn’t that at all. in fact, my top 10 list soon expanded into a top 150 list. & i found myself thinkin’ “wow, there was a lot of real good shit this decade.” it seems obvious when i prompt myself to talk about it, but so many cats these days whine and moan about the decline of modern music. those cats are just too dumb & lazy to think or look & therefore, don’t deserve good music to begin with.
this list is a gigantic middle finger to those people.
so, what lies below is a labyrinth of text explaining why these albums are important. maybe you’ll see one that you dig, if you do, leave a comment because i’d love to talk about it. maybe you’ll see something you should check out, if you do, let me know and i’ll burn you a CD. or, maybe you’ll see a mess of narcissistic, self-referential bullshit. maybe you won’t read it at all, & after a little while, after it’s forgotten, it will cease to exist. i dunno. i’m not a fucking mind reader.
so, if you do indulge, enjoy. these are the best albums of the 00’s
dan luke.
On Elvis Presley, Television & Socialized Healthcare.
Dec 19th
Sometimes when I get really stoned I like to think about the universe. You know, the standard stuff: space time continuum’s vacuumed through a black hole, string theory, alternate universes, parallel dimensions. But that stuff is so far away and gigantic that when I get sober (which, I personally believe that sobriety is less a state of normalcy and more a state of bitter apathy) it seems stupid.
So, maybe that’s how I’m wired: I get stoned I think about the universe. When I’m sober, I bitch about people on this planet. A lot of times I feel like my life is just one big arm wrestling match, it seems like regular society is trying to push me out, and I’m trying to push my way in, to dominate. I can’t relate to most people, so I obsess about people. Which leads me to my next point: Sociology, I know this seems like rambling, but just stick with me here. The way I view the world is that it’s just this clusterfucked stew of opinions, phobias, ideologies, impulses, and various other terms that a psychiatrist will spit at you, as you lay on a couch, murmuring “mmhmm’s,” and “yeah’s,” even though you don’t have any particular clue to what the fuck that psychiatrist may or may not be talking about.
In America, the world is split into republicans and democrats. The republicans being these right wing lunatics that get offended when Elvis wiggles his hips on stage, or freak out when Barrack Obama presents a public health care option, and the democrats being these beatnik, over-regulatory assholes. Look at both Elvis and Health care, how television has created this huge snowball of publicity for both: with Elvis there was the birth of a new social standard, a new culture of leather jackets, jive talking, pink cardigan wearing bimbos, and basically every other caricature from grease. Yet people couldn’t handle the future-shock, or the fact that this was something, that whether they liked it or not, would eventually become their culture.
HIATUS!
Jul 21st
Yes! This site is indeed on a hiatus of indefinite length. I need to sort out what the next iteration of it will be, but running a successful blog is not a huge priority in my life any longer. I’ll have a proper write up later but for now, sleep well friends. A few of these essays might actually get published in a collection sometime next year but that is some ways off.
Dan Luke.
Just Some Thoughts I Had Today About Snow Patrol.
Apr 27th
I have listened to “Shut Your Eyes” by Snow Patrol about four times today. The thing is: that deep within the fiber of my being I understand that Snow Patrol suck and that the only reason they got famous was, well (and lets be frank), Grey’s Anatomy.
But I heard “Shut Your Eyes” on the radio and I loved it. The spaced out layering of the instruments, the incessant “fuck you” to the Verse Chorus Verse song structure (you know you want it to get epic when the song gets to the handclaps and they’re singing “shut your eyes and sing to me.” 90’s radio trained you to be that way), the moodiness, it moved me. It’s a really good, solid song.
Which makes Snow Patrol a bunch of dicks.
Why do bands do this? Do they have an agenda? Do they sit down and say:
“Hey guys, we know we suck. We’re the scourge of the earth, but lets write one really, really good song that spreads like some sort of bubonic plague and then those poor hearted souls that really, really love the song will slog through the rest of our shit in the hopes of feeling their spirits soar that much again.”
“But we’ll just suck.”
What a bunch of dicks. But alas, here I will listen to “Shut Your Eyes” for the fifth time today.