What happened to Cuba Gooding Jr.?

I was never a big fan of him, but the decline of Hollywood stars fascinates me. Not in the Lindsay Lohan/Britney Spears train-wreck kind of way, but in the way that someone like Cuba Gooding Jr. can win an Oscar for a respectable (albeit incredibly annoying) performance in Jerry Maguire, then go on to make the movies above. I think the movie posters speak for themselves.

What makes an actor take roles like these? Do agents actually advise artists to do these films? I can't imagine how that conversation would go. "Yes, Cuba, my man. You should definitely put your face on the cover. It'll just be you and a bunch of snow dogs. It'll be great. It's Disney, so it's gotta be great."

RIP, Cuba.

Jack White is my homeboy

Last week the new issue of Paste was delivered to my doorstep, then to my mailbox, and from there I took it inside my house. Paste is, in my humble opinion, the best magazine out there for music fans. The writing is superb, highlighting an eclectic variety of great bands without catering to indie rock snobbery/fandom. And the mix CD included with every issue ain't bad, either.

The current issue features a lengthy interview with Jack White (and occasionally Meg White) of The White Stripes. It's one of the more in-depth interviews with the man I've read, and it made me like him. A lot. In fact, I never realized I had so much in common with him. (Kudos to writer Jason Killingsworth for tackling some big issues.) I found myself admiring Jack and completely agreeing with him about the state of music journalism and indie rock in general:

Paste: It seems like the journalistic community is partially responsible for the cycle of building up rock stars and then ripping them down. Like a kid who makes a bunch of sand castles and then gleefully stomps all over them.
JW: I've never understood it. . . . It's ridiculous to champion underdogs and once they succeed to abandon them. . . . If you abandon a band as soon as other people like them, then you don't love it for the right reasons. You like music for identity. That's not loving music. Loving art for its own sake means you don't care what people think.

Now, I admit I feel a pang of disappointment, maybe even some disillusionment, when a little-known band I like strikes it big, but that's my fault, not the band's. If a band can stay true to its sound and sell out an arena, bully for those guys.

Reading on, I found out that Jack and I have a similar opinion about God as well, at least at the core. He says:

I just want to know what the truth is. I mean that's what I'm looking for. In my opinion, there's no way God looks at things from 14 different angles. I see God as knowing only one truth, and that's it. There's no other opinion about it. And I want to know what that one truth is.

Amen, brother.

That said, I sometimes wear black with colors other than white and red, and there's also no confusion about whether the lady in my life is my wife or my sister. So I guess the similarities only go so far.

Curious

For some reason, Ryan Adams is great

Easy Tiger just might be my favorite Ryan Adams album yet, and that's saying a lot since I'm a strong believer in Cold Roses, Heartbreaker and Gold. The problem is, I can never quite describe why I like Ryan Adams. It's hard to explain why this album is the perfect version of alt. country, country rock, rock-infused country or whatever you'd like to call it--maybe all of the above. This is somewhat emabarrassing for me to admit since I'd like to think I can always describe (on paper, not verbally) why I like or dislike an album or an artist. But here's what I've decided so far for this record. I think.

1. The Cardinals are a superb backing band. (Easy Tiger should actually be a "and the Cardinals" album, but the label decided it didn't want that tag.) Adams is good on his own, but with the Cardinals he's terrific.

2. I've never heard Adams sing as well as he does on these tracks. He has a whole range of vocal tones, and this one sounds like the true voice with which he was meant to sing.

3. It's widely acknowledged that Ryan Adams is a jerk, and that very well may be true, but that's OK-- I can be quite a jerk, too. And, being a jerk also means he has no problem being completely honest in his lyrics. On "Rip Off," he admits his shortcomings, but he also doesn't apologize for his bluntness:

I make these promises but all my promises hurt
It's like they never get a lift off
So if I'm being honest with you and it seems like I'm being cruel
At least you didn't get a rip off, a rip off

I also think he's fully aware of the tragedy of his own behavior, and he relates it in a way that's all too familiar on "I Taught Myself How to Grow Old":

Most of the time I got nothing to say
When I do it's nothing and nobody's there to listen anyway
I know I'm probably better off this way
I just listen to the voices on the TV till I'm tired
My eyes grow heavy and I fade away

4. Before the guitar solo on "Halloweenhead" he yells out, "Guitar solo!"

At the risk of revealing how few people actually read this blog, feel free to leave your opinions of Easy Tiger and/or Ryan Adams, dissenting or otherwise.

Mirah, Wexner Center, 7/15

Live review coming in The Other Paper Thursday.

Daytrotter

A quick plug for a site that does things right (and has been generating a lot of buzz this year). The Daytrotter folks have established a reputation as the perfect pit stop for touring bands to lay down a few tracks. The "About" section of the site says it best:

"These fine people – as they’re traveling through America’s heartland – take two hours out of their travels between shows to stop in for a Daytrotter Session at Futureappletree Studio One in downtown Rock Island, Ill. The name of the city is not ironic. They use borrowed instruments, play with their touring mates, utilize a often unkempt toilet, eat some food and then cram back into their vans for the last half of the drive. What they leave behind is a pile of ashes, sometimes a forgotten stocking hat and four absolutely collectible songs that often impart on whomever listens to them the true intensity that these musicians put into their art, sometimes with more clarity than they do when they have months to tinker with overdubs and experiments. These songs are them as they are on that particular day, on that particular tour – dirty and alive. We want you to make this your new home as it is ours. We promise that you will love it here."

I do love it there, at least the site itself--I can't speak for the unkempt toilet. The recordings tend to do what Daytrotter intends: They capture the essence of a song and an artist on that particular day. No blips or bleeps or walls of sound. Particular favorites of mine are recent sessions by The Mountain Goats, The National and David Bazan (of Pedro the Lion). The accompanying write-ups for the recordings are well-written and refreshingly unironic, and each mp3 comes with a custom illustration of the band embedded in the file.

Best of all, the four live tracks from each artist are free, and the performers are certainly aware of this. In an environment where many bloggers seem to have no qualms about leaking entire albums before a record is released, Daytrotter is a welcome alternative. Check out some tracks, and if you find a band you like, buy an album.

Start 'em early

Liam's new iPod and Specktone iPod stereo. At three weeks, I think he might already be the most spoiled kid in America.

But, it actually does make sense. Not having music in Liam's room isn't an option-- he must be indoctrinated into the land of good music early on, so as not to be led astray by the Wiggles of the world. Plus, I don't buy many CDs anymore, and when I do I put them directly onto the iPod. So, when I buy music for Liam, I don't want a stack of CDs taking up what little space we have in his room, and I want playing downloaded music to be quick and easy. (We can always start a mutual vinyl collection later to appreciate album art). See? It's really not excessive....

Among some other kid-friendly tunes (Sufjan, The Weepies), I'm currently loading his iPod with the album below, which we received as a gift at one of his showers and I highly recommend:
And I solemnly swear the iPod of my son will never contain:

The car that ran on water

I'm not a conspiracy theory kind of guy, but this article in Sunday's Dispatch about Stanley Meyer, a Columbus-area man who invented a dune buggy that ran on water then died mysteriously, is worth a read. An excerpt I found interesting:

Charlie Hughes, now 36, vividly recalls the strangers who visited his parents' home in the late 1970s.

He had been playing outside when the driveway suddenly filled with limousines. Men in turbans stepped out. In "stern, thick accents," they asked for Meyer. "I remember, because I was not allowed in my own house that day."

They left briskly. Charlie was about to go inside when the driveway filled again, this time with military vehicles. "Army brass," he recalled.

At dinner that night, Meyer told them: "The Arabs wanted to offer me $250 million to stop today. You and this lovely family can live in peace and prosperity the rest of your days."

The Army officials, meanwhile, had questioned Meyer about what the foreigners wanted, thinking that a deal might have been struck, Charlie recalled Meyer telling the family.

Recycling and little lawn chairs

Instead of putting recycled items in a red bin on the curb every week, Kate and I decided to save that whopping $5 per month and drive the stuff down the road to the community recycling Dumpsters next to Weiland's. This seemed like a good idea for a few reasons, one of which is that somehow these items turn into money for the community (supposedly). The downside is, our porch routinely piles up with cardboard boxes, bottles, cans, newspapers and the like. In fact, we frequently refer to this screened side porch as the "trash porch," whereas the previous owners probably called it their "breakfast nook."

So tonight, after wading through the pile and loading it into the car, I made the biweekly (or sometimes triweekly) trip to the green bins. When I arrived I saw some people around the containers, and I assumed it was other locals recycling at 11 pm on the Fourth of July, or maybe some kids messing around. When I began unloading the items, I instead saw an immigrant family. There was a mom, dad, young boy and an even younger little girl, probably 3 or so. Instead of unloading items, they were sorting and gathering whatever they could that might bring in some money. Even the toddler, wearing a see-through turquoise backpack with a doll inside, was doing her part. She had her own tiny lawn chair where she sat with a pile of soda and beer cans, doing her best to crush them with her miniature hands. The boy looked through the Sunday newspaper circulars, seemingly attempting to avoid the entire situation. Meanwhile, the mother aggressively rooted through the bin from inside the Dumpster. I said hello to the father, but he remained silent and looked at me with a look that knows no language barrier: shame.

I don't know much about the immigration bill, and I don't know what the best tack is for keeping aliens, illegal or otherwise, out of poverty. I just felt a mix of emotions when I saw this family--sad for their plight, guilty for not knowing how to help or what to do, and, admittedly, grateful for all the ways God has blessed my own family.

But mostly, in that brief encounter, I was thankful for blissful ignorance--not for myself, and not for people who don't know this goes on, but for the little girl. I'm glad she enjoyed sorting and crushing those cans, and that she had no idea that lots of other girls don't have to do such things. For now, it's just another night that she gets to take her little chair outside and bring her doll. Here's hoping and praying that by the time she understands what those bins are, she'll no longer be taking trash out of these Dumpsters, and she won't remember her mother inside of one.

Buddies