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Track 10: Take That, "Back For Good"

Okay, so when I mentioned in my introduction post that some songs weren't specifically "about" Christmas, "Back For Good" is what I meant. As far as I know, it's not about Christmas. Not at all, actually.

Or, well—is it? Because would it really be such a staple of Christmas parties, even in television & films, if it didn't subconsciously reflect some sort of Christmas spirit?

Anyway, I've written about "Back For Good" before, but I'm taking this opportunity to elevate it in my personal pantheon from "somewhat guilty pleasure" to "perfect end to a holiday mix." Gary, Robbie et al: consider yourselves elevated.

But so, "Back For Good." Here's the thing: it's perfect pop, & the perfect song to end a holiday mix, or a movie, or a television special. But more specifically, it's the perfect soundtrack to a last dance, wherein you summon the courage to dance with whoever you've been watching all night. [1]

It's a new year soon, after all.

Buy Nobody Else.

[1] Yes, I am sadly under the influence of the (always surprisingly sentimental) The Office Special.

Looks like the real thing.

Quite randomly, yesterday our TiVo decided to tape an episode of Beavis & Butt-head from 1995.

I feel like Mena & I have somewhat of a history with Beavis & Butt-head, in that we actually saw Beavis & Butt-head Do America in the theater [1]. I think that probably makes us fairly unique, given how poorly the movie did. I don't even remember the movie much, but I do remember always loving the television show. My favorite part was always the music videos, because that's when they'd get their best lines in—that's where you'd get pop-cultural references, and the cleverly roundabout slams on the artists in the videos.

So in the episode I saw today ("Whiplash"), they were watching the video for "Fake Plastic Trees", which is just such a self-pitying piece of shit [2] (both the song and the video, I think). And so anyway, the video begins, the acoustic guitar comes on, and there are all these fluorescent supermarket lights, etc.

And then, Thom Yorke comes on for the first time, looking all pathetic and pushing a shopping cart. And this is where the magic begins!

Butt-head: "Hey, that looks like that dude. He was on TV, and then they made a cartoon out of him."

Beavis: "Oh yeah, yeah. He's got that shirt, and then his hair's all like a point on the top of his head."

"..."

"Yeah, yeah, what's his name?"

"Uh... Yeah, what is his name?"

"Oh... damnit... what's it, he's um..."

"..."

"Oh yeah yeah, he's like always going, 'I must say'..."

"Uh, yeah... And then he's like, always saying he's going to be on Wheel of Fortune, and he's like, all into Pat Sajak."

"..."

"Uh, Wiggly... Smeggly..."

"No, that's not it. Damnit! Damnit! This guy looks just like him! Damnit! I'm forgetting everything! I can't remember anything anymore!"

And then Beavis starts getting all frustrated, and asks Butt-head to hit him, and then he finally remembers Ed Grimley's name.

It's just so fantastic! I cried.

BTW, I really wish I could find a clip of this episode online, but I can't find it anywhere. I still have it on our TiVo. Can I get it onto my computer somehow?

[1] amazingly, considering that we hardly ever go to movies anymore. But we used to go see pretty much anything in the theater, because we were so bored in college. We even saw The Waterboy.

[2] One of my favorite things I've ever heard about "Fake Plastic Trees" was in Clueless, where Cher calls it "the maudlin music of the university station... waah, waah, waah." So funny! [3]

[3] And which is also sort of weird, because right after this line, Cher and Josh sit down to watch TV, and Beavis & Butt-head are on. Full circle!

You broke my heart.

SPOILER ALERT. Or something. It's in bullet number one, if you actually care about Top Model.

• Wow, Lisa [1]. I'm actually surprised, but not so much, because she was really starting to bug me lots in recent weeks. And frankly, I considered myself a pretty big supporter of Lisa. Every time Mena would say, "Ben likes her, but he's an idiot," [2] I'd say, "But she takes such great pictures!" But then it just stopped mattering, because she was so annoying.


• I've been listening a lot to the Dios (Malos) album, which is unexpectedly one of my favorite albums of this year. Going in, I didn't have any reference points or comparisons for it [3], which lack of baggage may be part of the reason why I'm enjoying it so much. But it's this great fun pop music, sort of sad, sort of relaxing in a druggy way, but at the same time—maybe even inexplicably—happiness-creating.


• I am, admittedly, a little bit obsessed with The Godfather: Part II. It's a fucking long movie, and usually, even a 90-minute movie is too much of a commitment for me. And not only that, but it's a really, really depressing movie. I mean, you know this, I'm sure, having watched it (right?), but it's really depressing! That look on Michael's face at the end? It kills me, every time, but I just can't stop watching it.

[1] Who, I think, I liked better with dark hair. But that's just me.

[2] This is a total exaggeration.

[3] Except for the really obvious ones, which don't really affect me that much, because I'm not a big fan of either the Beach Boys or Neil Young.

I'm a Bad Sportsmanship

You can tell you're writing a lazy post when the first thing you type is <ul>. [1]

• Best episode of "Survivor" in a long time, tonight. The sexually charged screaming match between Jamie & Bobby Jon? Amy getting trapped under the ball? Judd denying that Yaxha was a "bad sportsmanship"? I love personal conflicts, therefore I love Judd. Q.E.D.
• Oh fuck no, not Housequake! [2]
• This is not so much television- or music-related, but I loved Joel's post about Web 2.0 today, just as as I loved Anil's post about Web 2.0 last week. Every post about Web 2.0 should mention Billy Madison or Bow Wow!

[1] HTML jokes are so lame—but lists are just so easy to write.

[2] By which I mean, Coryn. We started calling her Housequake for some very bizarre reasons—basically, because she's got some vaguely Prince-like characteristics (those cheekbones, etc), & she's from Minneapolis, and so Mena & I were like... what if?

No, admittedly, it doesn't make much sense when you actually think about it. But it amused us saying things like "Damn! Shut up, already" every time Coryn would come on the screen. And now, that joy is gone.

Cognoscens me AHA Cognoscens te

All roads lead to Alan Partridge:

• Today, I was listening to the Happy Mondays' Pills, Thrills & Bellyaches...
• When Jason IM'ed me about 24 Hour Party People, which I love...
• Only to get home tonight, and find our brilliant TiVo recording "Knowing Me, Knowing You" on BBC America [1].

Aha! [2]

So anyway, I've been watching the first 2 episodes of "Knowing Me, Knowing You" again tonight, and wow, what a fucking brilliant show. Or rather, set of shows, because "I'm Alan Partridge" (both series)—which takes place after Alan has accidentally shot one of his guests on the chat show, and is doing a (very early) morning radio show in Norwich, trying to get back said chat show—are actually even better, IMHO, than "KMKY".

Favorite things that I can remember from both shows [3]:

• Alan's Sports Casual line (wherein Alan shows off his fashion line, "demonstrating a trade that [he's] an Alan of"). Watch it.
• Alan's biggest fan, who has a room in his house with pictures of Alan up all over, and an Alan mask that he puts on.
• The ABBA medley, which has to be the most brilliantly funny thing ever. I'm quite serious: if you follow one link from this post, follow that one, & watch the video. My favorite parts are the "Voulez Vous... AHA!" bits. The link, again: Watch it.
• The Victorian Dogs: Alan mishears one of his guests saying that she liked "Victorian Dolls," so he dresses up some dogs in Victorian costumes.

[1] Granted, "brilliant" may be a bit of an overstatement, since we have a TiVo wishlist item for anything including "Steve Coogan". But still.

[2] The Happy Mondays featured heavily in 24 Hour Party People as one of Tony Wilson's bands at Factory Records (who fared better than A Certain Ratio, happily for them). And they're awesome.

But so besides the fact that Steve Coogan played Tony Wilson in 24hPP & Alan Partridge in "Knowing Me, Knowing You," the character of Alan Partridge & the chat show itself was partially based on Tony Wilson. Which is what brings it all round, and makes it so ironic, meta, etc.

[3] I was quite tempted to make a marathon Steve Coogan/Alan Partridge/Tony Wilson night of it tonight, watching "KMKY", "IAP", and 24hPP all in succession. But our "IAP" DVDs are Region 2, and it's just so much work, so I gave up rather quickly.

So the above list is, truly, mostly from memory, or from the 2 episodes I saw tonight. I haven't watched any "IAP" episodes in a couple of years, which explains the skew.

Meditations on Guilt, or Two Songs (and One TV Show) That I'm Almost Ashamed About

If you've been reading my blog, you might have gotten the sense that I'll write about anything I'm watching or listening to, no matter how seemingly shameful. I mean, Criss Angel: Mindfreak? Fucking hell, I'll admit it—that show's pretty awful.

But nothing I've written about is something that I'd actually consider a guilty pleasure, per se. And I've always had a rather uncomfortable relationship with the concept of guilty pleasures, to be honest, because I believe that if you really enjoy something—whether it be music, or television, or films, etc—there's nothing shameful or guilt-inducing about that! Pride or guilt shouldn't enter into enjoyment of popular culture.

That said, though...

I'm actually perversely proud of listening to or watching certain things in my iTunes library, or our TiVo "Now Playing List." I think I may just like being contrary, in part, and consuming things that just really annoy people or make them mad.

And so those are what I tend to think of as my guilty pleasures, the guilt being my atonement for the pain that I'm purposely causing everyone else.

So, examples:

Clay Aiken, "Solitaire"

Much more histrionic than the Carpenters' version, and with some rather dodgy additional lyrics, it sometimes sounds like Clay is getting a bit lost beneath the surging orchestration. But I still love it.

The thing about Clay, for me, is that I actually get the sense that he means it. There's something very honest & true about Clay Aiken, and that's always really, really important for me when it comes to music—I grew out of my college-era irony phase a long time ago. And, frankly, if there's one thing that I always associate with guilty pleasure music, it's music that actually seems sincere, perhaps sincere to the point that it's a bit uncomfortable.

"His eyes are closed / His heart is broken..." Truly. Poor, confused, Clay.

Take That, "Back for Good"

This song just can't help but remind me of the Office Special, at the end, at the Christmas party, when Tim says goodbye to Dawn, and then she comes back, etc. It was one of the most unexpectedly sentimental—and touching, because of that—scenes I've seen in a long time.

It may be partly the association with the Office Special, but there's just something so junior-high dance about this song—it's that slow song that comes on near the end of the dance, when everyone is milling about, thinking they're going to leave, but it pulls you back in, all excited, for that one last slow dance.

What I really wanted was to have it played at our holiday party last Christmas, because I figured it would at first piss everyone off, but then they'd see how great it was, and all just start loving the song, too. But alas I wasn't in charge of the music.

"Degrassi: The Next Generation"

I really love "Degrassi: TNG," and it's not a guilty pleasure in the sense that I actually feel embarrassed about watching it—it's that I feel a bit creepy & old about watching it, because these kids are just so recognizably young. Anyway, I'm not going to write much about this, because I have a feeling it could someday inspire a post in itself.

Suffice to say, though, that when friends come over to watch TV with Mena and me, and they look at our TiVo "Now Playing" list, and it contains 5 Degrassi episodes—well, I guess I'd admit to feeling just a little bit embarrassed, then.

"Get outta my jungle."

Oh, TV. You're just awesome. [1]

• Tyra Mail! "You should just keep making all those mistakes, and hope that we don't notice the ones you think we will." [2] That's, like, a life lesson.


• Oh Gary, don't lead the life that they made for you... "I'm totally gonna deny that I'm Gary Hogeboom." Hey: No one fucking cares that you're Gary Hogeboom!


• The Go-Betweens in general ("16 Lovers Lane" in particular). I guess that subconsciously I'm trying to set a record for the number of times I write about The Go-Betweens, both on this blog and on my LJ. But they're just amazing. The best band from to come out of Australia, ever. That's what I'm saying tonight, at least. [3]


• Dusty, Dusty, Dusty. You never cease to impress me. When I first heard you on "What Have I Done to Deserve This?", I basically said, that's a pretty fun & clever song, and it became my favorite PSB song. And then I bought your Best of, and there were some pretty incredible songs, but I worried that your voice was being drowned by the somewhat melodramatic production on some of the tracks. And then I heard Dusty in Memphis, and I thought, OMFG. So here's to "Breakfast in Bed."


• I'm so excited, because I'm getting a haircut tomorrow—I hate it when my hair's too long, & makes me feel all lethargic—and then I'm going to go to Amoeba, and there are so many albums I want. Yay!

[1] And music, I haven't forgotten about you! You're awesome, too.

[2] That's Tyra on disclaimers. And yes, this is probably far from an exact quote. In fact, it's a paraphrase, because I don't remember the exact quote, and we already deleted the episode from TiVo. But I think the sentiment is fairly accurate.

[3] Speaking of which. Every week on Rock Star: INXS (sorry, I'm not going to bother to make the "X" all red with a star in it), what got me was the fact that Tim Farriss would always say, "You're just not right for our band, INXS" (emphasis mine). Like, why the continual need to point that the band is INXS?

1. The show is called Rock Star: INXS.


2. You're obviously fucking Australian, and how many well-known bands from Australia, are there, anyway?

Really, it got rather ridiculous, to the point where it felt rather desperate, as if someone were continually saying, "don't forget to reinforce your brand!" And what I thought was basically, how sad that they felt that they needed to do that. If Michael Hutchence had been alive—well, sure, I understand that they wouldn't have been looking for another singer, but other than that—would they have still felt the need to continually remind us that they're INXS? Who do they assume has forgotten that fact while watching the show, over the course of an hour?

"To Jack: My Hero."

This was our first weekend in awhile where we didn't have a bunch of stuff planned (other than our Friday night activities).

We had planned to go to the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass concert in the park, but by the time Saturday rolled around—and then, inevitably, Sunday—we were feeling pretty lazy. Too lazy, in fact, to do anything other than sit around & watch television.

To be more specific: on Saturday, we watched 12 straight fucking hours [1] of Season 1 of "Lost," to the point where, at midnight, I was walking around seeing scary shit all over the house in my peripheral vision. It was pretty freaky. And then, tonight, we watched 8 more hours of the show. We still haven't finished all of Season 1, but we're getting close now.

It's a pretty astonishingly interesting show, what with the topics—monsters, numerology, etc—and just the characters in general.

But so, as an obsessive watcher of "Party of Five" a number of years ago, what's funny to me is how similar Jack, Matthew Fox's character on "Lost", is to Charlie, his character on "Party of Five." In fact, from a Matthew Fox point of view, it could basically be the same show, except "Lost" has monsters. [2]

Of course, "Party of Five" had Owen, so maybe that evens it out.

But so anyway, with Jack/Charlie, it's basically that flawed nobility, that reluctant hero quality: the tendency to always try to be the hero, but have everyone begrudge you for being the hero, and to kind of resent being a hero in a really passive-aggressive sort of way. Seriously, we were just watching "Do No Harm" (episode 20)—which is like a veritable compilation of Jack as hero montages—and there was this quote, where Jack said to Boone, "I'm going to save you." And it's like, it couldn't be much clearer than that!

Some fond (or otherwise) Po5 memories:

• God, I hated Owen. What an obnoxious whiner. And he was always running away, or getting abducted, or just generally being a pain.


• Ned! Crazy, crazy Ned, and his daddy issues & Julia abuse.


• When Bailey showed up at Owen's birthday party drunk in a clown costume. Which led to the Intervention.


• Todd, Claudia's incredibly creepy & sleazy boyfriend in the final season.


• When Charlie got cancer and had chemotherapy, but never lost that fucking stubble that he'd had for the entirety of the show. Why didn't the stubble go away? I think it might be a bigger mystery than anything on "Lost"!

[1] Interrupted only by about the first 45 minutes of 13 Going On 30, a guilty pleasure if there ever was one. That choreographed "Thriller" scene is awesome.

[2] Or something. We haven't gotten to the point yet where we'd know, I guess, what exactly that thing in the jungle is.

"Two Words: Umm. Eww."

Okay, I'm so fucking unashamedly excited about the new season (or "cycle") of "America's Next Top Model".

But let's go meta for a second: Mena & I were talking this morning on the way to work about how much we love the show, and I said I was going to write a post about it. And she was like, just don't start it with a bunch of exclamation points and "How much do I fucking love America's Next Top Model!!!"

And I said, well, what if I include this conversation as a sort of disclaimer re: my masculinity? [1]

I said it sounded like a footnote, but she said it should be front & center in the post.

And so there we had an agreement on my post about ANTM.

---

But anyway: wow. What a show!

My very early-on favorite notes:

• I really like Kim, but I don't think she'll last that long. Call me crazy, but that walk just won't cut it.


• Makeovers! [2]


• This week's episode hit home with me, because I have a recurring nightmare where James St. James is chasing me down the street with a bullhorn. [3]


• Yay, they destroyed Cassandra! I liked it when she was crying about her hair getting cut: so good! And then someone was like, "No more beauty pageants" in the background, while they were cutting her hair. That was funny.


• Big D! This video is awesome, particularly the part at the end with J. playing all like a gangsta, & doing a strangely convincing job of it.

If I had to vote for a winner today, I'd vote for Lisa. Though I'm not sure about the blonde hair.

[1] And, you know, if I also drank a beer or something while watching the show. Which I did!

[2] I have a really, really awful confession to make, one that I'm actually embarrassed about: I used to watch TLC's A Makeover Story every day with Mena about 4 years ago. Every. Single. Day.

Now, I can't even watch that show, because the makeovers are just so bad, relatively.

[3] Well, not really, but that was scary, wasn't it? I kept thinking about that Simpsons episode where Homer makes the clown bed in Bart's room. "Can't sleep, clown'll eat me..."

Know what happened to him? He died!

So I decided tonight to watch the pilot and the final episode of "Freaks & Geeks," one of my favorite shows ever, as evidenced by the fact that we own the special yearbook version of the DVD set. Fuck, what an incredible show this was.

I had planned to watch "Purple Rain" again tonight. But then, I decided on "Freaks & Geeks."

It wasn't really such a whim—it was in part because I'd watched the first episode of Kitchen Confidential tonight, in which John Frances Daley co-stars, and which I feel kind of ambivalent about. I really liked Anthony Bourdain's book, and overall I didn't dislike the show—it didn't completely blow me away, but it had its moments, and I'll watch it again.

But so the other reason why I got into the "Freaks & Geeks" mood was because a couple of weeks ago, we bought the "Undeclared" Season 1 (and only) DVD set at Amoeba. We were really into "Undeclared" while it was actually on TV, but I don't think they ever aired the final 3 episodes (or, probably quite a few others). So as part of buying the DVD set, we got to finally see the last 3 episodes of the show, which were amazing, particularly the last episode, with Ben Stiller. I honestly don't know why this show wasn't more popular. I guess for partly the same reason as "Freaks and Geeks."

I think "Undeclared" suffered from not being able to find the right demographic—i.e. there's a demographic that likes high school shows, & a different demographic that likes, um, old people shows. And the college students, or people who'd appreciate a fucking awesome show about college freshmen, just spend the whole 4+ years getting drunk & watching unfunny SNL episodes. Or maybe that's just bitterness about my college experience. [1]

But back to "Freaks & Geeks," which was one of the great tragedies of modern television programming. It first aired on a Saturday night, spent about 6 weeks there or so, then moved to (I think) Monday night? I don't even remember. Then it was off for about 3 weeks, while the NFL playoffs, or the stupid March Madness tournament, took over the television. And then finally, it underwent the mercy killing that we all knew it would endure from the beginning—better to burn out, etc.

I really remember watching the pilot, on some Saturday night in 1999, and just being completely blown away. And frankly, I still am. Mena & I loved "Freaks & Geeks" so much that we flew down to LA for the Museum of Television and Radio interview with the cast, along with the showing of one of the episodes that never aired. In some sense it was one of the weirder things we've done—as much as I love TV, I honestly can't imagine taking a plane flight just to see an episode & an interview with the cast and the creators.

But that was the thing about Freaks & Geeks—it put the fanatic in fan, for people who liked it. Or the other way round, maybe.

I realize I've said actually nothing about the show itself, but that's because you just have to see it. The incredible cast; the romantically nostalgic & realistic look at high school life; and the absolutely most perfect use of music ever in a TV series. [2] I'm sorry, I just can't do it justice.

I think the greatest testament for this show is that the pilot, in its final scene, made me a lifelong fan of Styx's "Come Sail Away," and it takes a pretty fucking amazing show to do that.

[1] But so then there are people like me, who will watch almost any reality show on television. No judgment!

[2] According to Paul Feig & Judd Apatow, the creators, they originally imagined a show that was completely filled with music the entire time. That proved difficult for licensing reasons, but even so, this show uses music better than any other I've ever seen, and better than most movies I've seen.