secret comics

Coffee Reviews

"Everyone is an expert at their own inclinations."

---Aaron Cometbus, "Coffee Reviews", Mixed Reviews

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"I mean I'm trying to say/is how can I express, let alone possess?"

---Minutemen, "D's Car Jam/Anxious Mofo"

Berkeley: Aria Da Capo

Berkeley: Aria

Art Is Whatever You Make It

Sitting on the porch, watching the early morning clouds roll by. Not wearing shoes or socks: feels good, feeling tired. A lot of things don't necessarily make sense. Don't have to. Clouds keep rolling by: from parts unknown, to parts unknown. That makes sense. A little. Just watching, I guess. Contemplating. Breathing, watching clouds roll by. Trying. Not trying. Open, as best as I'm able. Today, right in front of me. From parts unknown to parts unknown.

Pictures of the early morning Oakland sky:

Condition Oakland**

Some people, we'd just about die to get them to pay attention to us. And some of us are lucky enough to catch the eye of our beloved, while some of us are doomed to fail, and to the heartache our failure brings. I... well, I suppose that I should tell you that tonight I'm a member of this "doomed to fail" club.

When it comes to sweet pickle kittens named China (or maybe Chyna, I guess, like the she-male wrestler), anyway -- China is Vim's contribution to Vim and Minnie's "kat kollective", and is infuriatingly aloof. She likes about, oh, 3 second of scratching (only above the neck!) before you meows you off or makes a semi-serious attempt at swatting you away. She is tantalizingly cute, though. Her clear lack of affection for me drives me to try and woo her with greater and greater intensity. I even fed her a big dish of Iams wet food -- still, nothing. The night is young, though, and I might find other catty good treats to bribe her with.

Don't make my word for it that she's cute -- check out this nice low-light snap I took of her being aloof and (more or less) continuing to break my heart:

**It was fated, from time immemorial, that I would use this title for one or more of my posts from where I am right now. Don't worry that Metal's not taking advantages of those golden opportunities staring him right in the face.

Diagnosis: Meme Fever!

I got this meme from Becky S., Meme Queen -- she didn't "tag me" per se, but I'm pretty sure she meant to... maybe she just forgot. Anyway, she'll probably be OK with me taking the ball and running with it.  Cheap and easy content is cheap and easy content, right?  So... here's an, uhh, music meme. You are all now tagged!  That includes, but is not limited to, everyone on my "hand cranked" list who ends up reading this.  If you read this, you're tagged!  Unless you're here looking for "fuck comics" or some other such nonsense -- in that case: scram, dummy!  Beat it!

Those individuals who read this without a having an extant blog in which to response must now start a fanzine in which to include their response to this and any subsequent meme.  Meme responses should be clearly labled as such, preferrably in your own (messy) handwriting.  Reading the preceding sentence constitutes your acceptance of all terms contained herein, so there.  Also reading this sentence does too.  This one, too.  You must also call your 'zine a "memezeen".  The zine must be no fewer than 16 pages (per issue) and must be published no fewer than two (2) times within one (1) year of reading this post.  Interviews with bands are not only wholly optional, but are, in fact, strongly discouraged.  Poorly-drawn comics, though, are encouraged.  You must try to sell said memezeen for no more than fifty cents ($0.50) at a grimy local record store that reeks of incense and/or sells Zydot.  It will also be acceptable to sell (or give away) said memezeen at local shows featuring bands possessing far more enthusiam than talent. One copy of your memezeen must be sent to very metal, c/o Secret Comics.  Seriously, email me for the mailing address.  Now on to the meme:

Total size of music files on my computer: 14.9 GB

Last CD I bought: Black Flag: The First Four Years.

Song playing right now in iTunes: I am listening to Windows Media Player, because I am work and that's what I have... here... at work.  The song playing right now is not a song as much as it is a compilation -- for further details, see below.

Five songs I listen to a lot or songs that mean a lot to me: OK, I will step outside the narrow confines of this question and instead post the tracklisting for a compilation I've come up with here at work (using the Windows Media Player) that I still might make.  That I am listening to this morning.  I'm a semi-obsessive editor of these sorts of things, so it could still end up getting scrapped.  If I end up giving you this compilation after you've read about it here, sorry.

1. The Saints, "Demolition Girl" [1-2-3-4 E.P. version] (available on the [essential] All Times Through Paradise box set, Disc 1)
2. The Spits, "Space Guitar" (The Spits)
3. Wire, "It's So Obvious" (Pink Flag)
4. Elite, "One Potato" (Fort Worth Teen Scene, Vol. 1)
5. Daniel Johnston, "Grievances" (Songs of Pain: The Early Recordings, Vol. 1)
6. Mission of Burma, "Academy Fight Song" (1980 7"  included on Signals, Calls, and Marches)
7. Me First & The Gimme Gimme's, "Hats Off To Larry" (Fat Music, Vol. 5: Live Fat, Die Young)
8. The Jam, "Smithers-Jones" [album version] (Setting Sons)
9. The Undertones, "Mars Bars" (True Confessions, Disc 1)
10. The Slits, "I Heard it Through the Grapevine" (Cut)
11. Wesley Willis, "I'm The Daddy of Rock 'n' Roll" (Greatest Hits, Vol. 3)
12. NOFX, "San Francisco Fat" (Fat Music, Vol. 5: Live Fat, Die Young)
13. Bad Brains, "Pay to Cum" [original 7" version] (Banned in DC: Bad Brains' Greatest Riffs)
14. Murder City Devils, "I Drank the Wine" (In Name and Blood)
15. The Sonics, "Bama Lama Bama Loo" (Introducing the Sonics)
16. High-Tension Wires, "Smile and Lie" (Send a Message)
17. Hot Snakes, "This Mystic Decade" [Peel Session version] (Peel Session)
18. The Books, "Enjoy Your Worries, You May Never Have Them Again" (Thought For Food)
19. Explosions in the Sky, "The Moon Is Down" (Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Live Forever)

The One Good Thing About Clutch City

I have contacted the City of Houston Proclamations office, and am currently awaiting would still like confirmation that yes, November 5th is Jandek Day in Houston... well, not just in Houston, but it started there.  And that's something.

Everything I've found online seems to more or less accept the assertion as a matter of course, and outside of the above proclamation (which could be all Photoshopped up -- but who would go to the trouble, and why?) I'd like to get a little independent confirmation.  Maybe that's just the Encyclopedia Brown in me.  Hmmm.  Well, Seth Tisue mentions it as reliable fact (and also hosts the copies of the proclamation), and he's pretty much the reputable source for Jandek information. 

Oh yeah, also I turned up a good (unverified) Jandek quote from an unexpected source in my research:

"Jandek's not pretentious, but only pretentious people listen to him."

--Kurt Cobain

Discuss amongst yourselves.

Obligatory Revenge of the Sith Commentary

So I saw Revenge of the Sith with Helen Back on Saturday.  The capsule review?  I would have very much enjoyed watching the whole thing in a language that I didn't understand, sans subtitles.  Japanese, maybe?  It was a beautiful film, but as a narrative... well, it left a little to be desired.  Not maybe so surprising.  Plus the dialog/acting was as bad as I've ever seen, and I've seen some pretty shitty films.  It was kind of like George Lucas was subconsciously shooting for Hal Hartley dialogue, only with a "less realistic" feel.

OK, main bones to pick:

• Inconsistencies with the Jedi powers.  This was almost unbearable.  Clearly, Luke Skywalker was the worst Jedi ever, considering he couldn't do [almost] any of what the "cannon fodder" Jedi could do.  Also, it seemed like the Episode III Jedi powers waxed and waned as needed to help the "plot" along.  Just throw everybody back all of the time, goddammit!  Tear everyone from limb to limb! You know, like you do... some of the time. Also, it seemed rather easy to actually kill the Jedi.  Some of the time, anyway.

• When did Padme turn into some simpering little girly-girl?  Wasn't she kind of a strong character in the first two episodes -- shooting guns and arguing in the Senate, etc.?  She gets pregnant and turns into a retard. Thanks to Helen Back for pointing this out -- she's totally right.

• Mustafar (the volcano world) was idiotic. You couldn't survive for more than a minute or two with molten ash/lava/whatever permeating the air directly around you, could you? Wouldn't your lungs melt like cheap birthday candles?  OK, it was just a stupid action movie, but it's not like George Lucas didn't make stabs at some sort of consistency in other parts of the film -- the Jedi "underwater breathing devices", for example.

• Plot (pacing) generally.  The ridiculous need to have everything wrap up neatly  and leading "directly" to Episode III.  The main example off the top of my head -- they can get the Death Star's frame built shortly after Luke and Leia are born, but it takes the Empire between 16 and 18 years to almost finish it?!?  And then they can build at least half of the next one in the time between Star Wars and Jedi? 

  Updated note!  They were obviously trying to demonstrate that a considerable amont of time was yet to pass between the Death Star's respective appearances in ROTS and Star Wars by having an actor portraying a clearly much younger Grand Moff Tarkin (in fact, he's known as only "Governor Tarkin" in ROTS) in the ROTS/Death Star Scene.  Wayne Pyrgram (ROTS) had dark-ish, brown-ish hair, Peter Cushing (SW) pretty clearly had grey.  Even more below!

  Here's the General Tarkin action figure (w/ brown hair):

  

  And here's the Grand Moff Tarkin action figure (w/ grey hair):

  

• What the hell were the Clone Wars, exactly?  Who was General Grievous?  Why did he sound like he had empheysema?  Did he? And who the hell were "the Separatists"?!?  Did I miss something?

• Anakin originally went bad on the off chance (OK, he'd had dreams) that in doing so he might be able to save Padme from death-by-childbirth, which was stupid but not entirely beyond the realm of possibility.  I mean, you could have had maybe something earlier in the film (maybe not even the pregnancy, but that would have worked pretty well) threaten Padme's life, have Anakin freak out, and then just maybe you'd have the "Dark Side conversion" set up a little better, but that's just me.  Anyway, we're also supposed to believe Darth Vader went crazy go nuts and turned to even worse evil when the Emperor told him that Vader had killed Padme himself?  Mind you, Vader couldn't remember doing it.  In fact, didn't he says something like, "she was alive when I left her"?

  Why wouldn't he at least try to verify what had actually happened?  It's not like he wasn't ready to throw the Emperor under the bus in Jedi, and much had already been made of the "Sith Apprentice killing Sith Master" phenomenon.  Wasn't Vader supposed to be the most powerful Sith Lord ever?

• Wait, Darth Sidious and Chancellor Palpatine are the same person?!?  What kind of retarded Jedi couldn't have figured that out?

Also on the plus side of the ledger, I found that the Wookie warriors reminded me of Wesley Willis.  Also, the theatre wasn't really crowded at all. And it was a Saturday 7:00 p.m. showing.

Jealous Again

Another SoCal dispatch: for some reason, I've always found Black Flag to be one of the most interesting (if not the) punk rock bands to read about** -- Henry Rollins' Get In The Van has a lot to do with it, I guess.  It's one of those rare books you're genuinely disappointed to finish -- pretty high praise.  The only other one I can think of off the top of my head would be Harry Potter & The Prisoner of Azkaban.  Maybe all of the H.P. books.  It's OK, I'm kind of a dork.

Anyway, doing some crack research into things of interest to as few people as possible, I ran across this site, which pointed me to two great Flag articles by Jay Babcock: "The First Five Years" and "A 12-Step Program in Self-Reliance: How L.A.’s hardcore pioneers made it through their early years".  Both great reads if you're interested in Flag, the birth and growth of punk rock (and indie music) in the U.S., and human drama/the struggle to create art generally.  Highly recommended.  I also dug the Black Flag coverage in American Hardcore: A Tribal History.

**And they're not really one of my favorite bands. I totally like the early stuff, and can even get into Damaged. I just don't find myself listening to much Flag these days. Mainly high school. Although... their version of "Louie Louie" might be the second best ever, behind The Sonics. Flag gets bonus points for one the great self-pity, "subvert the love song paradigm" lyrics of all time: "You know the pain/that's in my heart/It just shows/I'm not very smart".

If Regan Played Disco

I snagged this outstanding, topical Minutemen cover of CCR's "Fortunate Son" [from the cassette release of Ballot Result, something I still need to get a copy of -- not on cassette, probably, but on vinyl and/or CD] from corndogs.org -- click below.  I guess it's an out-take from the '81 Joy sessions.  Some of the top-tier production on a Minutemen song I can recall -- bass/guitar/drums really well-defined and up-front ["bright"?], with nice multi-tracked vocals.  And they actually got Watt's bass placed properly in the mix.  Way wizard.

Picture is from Watt's Minutemen gallery.  D. Boon hand-colored the above to create the photo that appeared on the back of the Project: Mersh record.