thesuccub.us

People are still crowd surfing? Huh…. …   ….   …   … Wait?! There’s still a Lollapalooza?

Huh… … …

I feel like I’ve finally had enough time to digest the Arcade Fire’s new album “The Suburbs,” that came out this past week and sadly I am not one of those people who gets albums early (Joanna!).  After a slight sophomore slump (IMO) the much anticipated (by everyone and me) new album came out last week to “universal acclaim.” So is it good? Yep, it’s pretty darn good.

Butler and crew said in the NYT that they intended to make a cohesive album, and I’d say they succeeded. Each song has the same theme and feel, and while the songs are much different than the previous albums they stay true to that Arcade Fire “sound.” My one problem with this album is that it never rocks. Ever. There are plenty of places that it could, “Ready To Start” literally has 18 different points where it could start rocking and chooses not to. On purpose? Maybe, but I am missing the “Neighborhood 2″ kick of previous Arcade Fire ventures.

What’s more interesting (to me) about this album then the actual music, which is very very good, is this idea that the world is going to hell and life as we know it is headed into the can. If you know me, this is a constant theme in everything I think and talk about, and I’m happy that the AF feel the same way. Songs like, “We Used to Wait,” “The Sprawl” (number 2 being the best song on the album), “City With No Children,” etc etc. Pretty much the whole album is about this feeling that the world going in a horrible direction, and there’s not much we can do to stop it.

I feel like this is a generational thing. Everyone I know my age has echoed these feelings to me at one point or another. We (us being the people in our 30s and up) are the last generation that remembers life before the internet. Imagine that? We certainly used to wait for things; mail, phone calls, even dial-up!

Rob and I ponder sometimes how we ever found anyone before cell phones. Remember that, when you used to have to tell people where you were going to be at a specific time so that they could come meet you? Or you could stay at home and wait for them to call to “make plans.” My friends and I used to play this game (we were already out of high school so “play” is an arbitrary choice of words) called Law and Order. It entailed us driving around to various diners in town trying to find our other friends who may happen to be at said diners. Yes, this game is very lame sounding, but think about how odd the concept would be to today’s kids? Having to literally search for your friends, in diners no less!

Anyway, now I’m on a tangent. If you haven’t gotten the new Arcade Fire, do it. It’s beautiful and sad and even a little angry, just not very rocking.

I wrote about my trip to NYC in a previous post (literally the one before this) but I had to add this video of the greatest commercial I have seen in a long time. If you know me, you know I love horribly-awesome local ads. This one takes the cake.

So Rob updated some sort of WordPress something or other and as he was posting the upgrade/update, the word “Roll Back” appeared somewhere in a sentence that ended in a click “back or continue.” Naturally, this “roll back” had nothing to do with a great price on Kitty Litter at Walmart, it meant, erase your past two month’s posts.

So, two months of posts gone. Good thing I had absolutely nothing worth posting anyway.

I occasionally listen to the radio on my way home from work, mostly to annoy myself with how awful the current state of music is. Today, I almost jumped out of my own driver’s side window while driving. Man, music right now is terrible. Have you heard this one?

(I couldn’t  find a real video for it.)

Calling this guy Spose “Maine’s biggest hip-hop act” is really not saying much, considering their other big rapper is the assistant floor manager of the L.L. Bean in downtown Portland. This song is basically just “Pretty Fly for a White Guy” but worse/justasbad.

Do one in three women really have daily light bladder leakage? Like, everyday or… every few days or…?

And can it really be triggered just by sneezing, or coughing, among other “triggers.” Like stress? Are you telling me now, that if I’m stressed, among all the other crappy things I’ve learned that stress does from TV, Cortisol fat belly issues, headaches ; and now, stress! Stress might  just make me pee in my pants? Awesome.

I know that I’m not the only Christmas-loving Jew out there but I do think that I am the biggest. The holiday season, being kicked off with my other favorite holiday Tofurky Day, just makes me giddy for no reason. Christms movies, bad Christmas music, cookies, soy-nog, getting presents, buying presents, candycanes, pine needles, Jimmy Stewart, oh yeah and a week of  vacation also helps!!! So despite it being November 22, I will start the season off with this:

I’m appalled and disgusted. Way to sell out your dead best friend.

RIP CF.

We just moved to our new house, so I apologize for being remiss (as if anyone actually reads this). The house is a mess still, but again, we just moved in so I will give myself at least a month to start freaking out about that. The good news is this: we got AT&T UVerse, because we couldn’t get a regular DSL modem (this purchase was strictly because of internet), and the salesman was trying to get me to buy 300 channels, to which I said, no thanks.

So we got the smaller package, which just so happens to have Soapnet! I have been wanting Soapnet since its incarnation for no other reason than reruns of Beverly Hills 90210 and now I have it. Brenda’s crazy-crooked eye is mine 7 days a week! And life will never be the same…

Nice skull earrings.

For as far back as I can remember there has been a violent and fierce competition between myself and “screenwriter” (sic) Diablo Cody. I’m not sure what her problem is with me but it seems that no matter what I do, DC always has to one-up me. (It’s probably due to insecurities, hers not mine).

• I get a boyfriend, she becomes a stripper.
• I graduate with a degree in screenwriting from a mildly accredited New York State University, she wins an Oscar for best original screenplay for the movie Juno. (C’mon an OSCAR? That movie was basically a long episode of My So Called Life. “He’s the cheese to my macaroni”? Hi, 1994 just called and they want their pop-culture reference back. (they also just called me and wanted that phrase back))
• I obsess over the return of my all time favorite show, Beverly Hills 90210 and me and my friends have an email chain about it, she writes about it obsessively in Entertainment Weekly to the point that they actually give her a cameo on the show! (PS the new 9-0 sucks something awful and DC is a terrible actress!)(yes that was juvenile)
• I get a hair cut, she cuts off her late 90s, Orange County, out of date, Creeper’s wearing, rockabilly-chick hairdo and dyes it orange.
• I publicly denounce HBO as the mecca of quality television, she comes out with a new “dramady” on Showtime.
• I get “recognized” by this dude in Whole Foods (I occasionally do promos for the PBS channel I work at), only to  turn the corner to find DC on the cover of one of my favorites, Bust Magazine.

But today, I have finally won, well, so to speak. In this past week’s Fall Preview issue of New York Magazine, my hero and yours Dave Edelstein, said this about my arch-nemesis’s new flick.

“Jennifer’s Body
It’s amazing how fast Diablo Cody has become a joke after near-uniform critical raves (and an Oscar) for Juno. (I loathed it.) But hotcha Megan Fox as a camp vampire putting the bite on good girl Amanda Seyfried sounds right up the obnoxious Cody’s alley. If only the baby in Juno had burst out of Ellen Page’s belly and gone for her jugular …”

I love Dave Edelstein. I consider his movie reviews to be gospel. I like to read them and then quote them about a movie I have yet to see, and pretend these ideas are mine. Now I can’t be quite sure if Dave Edelstein is saying yay or nay to this new Diabolic Cody film, (can you?) but I DO know that he is mocking her somewhat and I will take that as an official win for Team Me.

Now what’ve you got to say Diablo?? Huh? That’s what I thought.