Why don't bands ever break up any more?

[Update!  I was preparing this rant last week, but never got around to publishing it--but now, one of the biggies has given up the ghost.  Maybe this will inspire the others to pack it in!]

I remember when I was young and there were a bunch of old geezer bands from the sixties and seventies that kept staying together and touring and putting out horrible new albums, etc--the main offender was the Rolling Stones with their awful eighties records, but then there were lesser bands like the Moody Blues and their godawful "In Your Wildest Dreams" song and (Jefferson) Starship with the singular "We Built This City".

At the time, I never realized that the contemporary hipster bands of the eighties would decide to stay together to milk their aging fan base forever, too.  The appropriate behavior for a group would be to put out one good debut album, and follow it up with 1 to 4 albums of lesser quality and then break up as a way of arresting their decline.

Here are a few of the main offenders:

U2 (together 35 years!  First single released 31 years ago)

Adam Clayton always looked awful, didn't he?

R.E.M. (together 31 years)

The mopey look that influenced countless jangle pop band photos in the 80s

Sonic Youth (still peddling their hipster cred after 30 years)

Hey, it's that guy from Stranger than Paradise!

Did you forget they ever looked like that, after all these years?  What ancient bands do you wish would just stop?

I have but one question:  Why isn't Obama doing something about this?  I am so disappointed in him!

Potlucks and Me

You may think it un-American of me, but I really don't like potluck dinners or parties.  We're now in the holiday potluck season, and I'm doing my best to dodge attending any.

Here's why I avoid them:

• I don't want to eat food that other people have made, unless I know it's going to be good.  I have friends who are good cooks, and I'm very happy to eat anything they will give me.  I like anything that Beebo prepares, and I like food that I (rarely) cook.  I really like eating at restaurants and taverns.  But I don't really like eating food that someone in the office made.  Baked goods are fine, but I don't want any casserole or anyone's 'great tabbouleh'.   There's something kind of icky about it for me, since I'm a picky eater.
• I don't like eating at parties, sitting on a couch or standing with a paper plate in my hand.  Eating and hobnobbing don't mix for me.  
• I don't like being expected to provide food for a work party.  I think it's weird that non-private sector employers feel comfortable expecting employees to provide for food for a a party that's supposed to be a treat for them (it's usually a different story if you work for some commercial enterprise).  Especially if it's a party that happens after work hours!  I appreciate that there's not really free money floating around when you work for a non-profit or a university/state office, but it kind of sucks the fun out of it.  Even worse is if you work in an office that expects you to pony up money for a work party (it happens)!
• In general, I think that if you send out a party invitation, the invitee should be welcome to show up empty-handed without fear of judgment.  I think bringing a bottle of wine or some special thing you've whipped up or purchased is a cool and appropriate reaction, but if there's a price of admission...it's not really a party. [Exception: parties given by young, poor people are always BYOB]
• Since I don't drive, it's a pain to schlep food to a party.  Pot lucks are for people who have cars!  And after the party, you always have to schlep some crusty serving dish home.  Ecch!  Worse, there's often pressure to help clean up after the 'party', so you have to deal with all the dishes you didn't want to eat in the first place.

Summary (for people in a hurry): 1. I don't like potluck food 2. I think cheap-o office parties are lame.

Keep It Flat!

You know what really irks me?  Adding airbrush-y shading to old cartoon characters to tart them up and make them look more "real".

F'r'instance, here's a nice classically flat Bugs Bunny:

 

...and here's the modern, "improved" B.B.:

Ecch!  I'm sure you're as offended as I am.


All the super-flat, limited animation Hanna Barbera characters of my youth have been subjected to the same treatment, which takes away their most appealing quality--their crisp black lines, and flat, bright colors.  Check out this poor guy:

Working it!

You can shade him all you want, but he still won't look real.

Lazy, lazy TMZ.com

Crappy gossip site TMZ has a photo feature called "All Growed Up", which is basically a 'what do they look like now' photo gallery of old TV stars from the 70s-90s. What irks me is the title--it fits if you're showing what some kid from an old sitcom looks like, but I often see something like this:


Ann B. Davis -- all growed up? She was all growed up 40 years ago, when The Brady Bunch was originally on TV. Can't TMZ at least come up with another header like:

"ALL OLD AND STUFF! CLICK TO SEE"?

Stores of Ennui

What is it about Bed, Bath and Beyond that fills me with such ennui and dread? I know, I know--it's boring, that's what. But I like buying things to fix up the apartment. Beebo and I live in a smallish place, so I see it as a challenge to fix it up in such a way that it can be the most efficient "machine for living" possible.

I love going to Ikea, and trying to figure out if there's a place for some odd bit of furnitire and storage. I also enjoy a good hardware store, even though I don't have the kind of living situation where I can use 90% of its products. But BBB has such a horrible mediocrity. There's so much plastic, and so many bland, washed-out colors. It also abounds with EZ-2-Assemble furniture, like wobbly fold-out bookcases, over-the-door hangers, and a million suction-cup based bathroom items--the kind of stuff that says "I'm just here temporarily, and also I can't put anything together competently".

Bad Martini Anxiety Dream

Last night I dreamed that one of my supervisors at work, Dr. V, announced she was going to treat the 'team' to a martini at a fancy hotel bar to celebrate finishing a project. I'm not that much into work socializing, but I went along with it, since I'm not the type to turn down a good free martini. I invited Beebo and a couple of other people along, figuring I could get my drink and then wander off to their table hang out with them.

After work, we get to the lounge, which is a large, fancy old-fashioned room like this photo:

(Copley Plaza Oak Bar, Boston)

and I find that, contrary to my expectations, we're not going to sit down in the swank chairs and wait for the cocktail waitress to come around and take our orders. Instead, in one corner of the room there has been set up a long fold-out event table with a bunch of drink fixings set out on it. It's got a couple of 1.75 liter plastic bottles of inexpensive domestic gin and vodka, a couple of lemons, and a jar of small olives, like what you'd find at a drug store's food section. This is where our celebratory martinis are coming from, not from the real bar. And to make matters worse, the mixologist will be Dr. V! One thing I don't really like is an amateur martini, and I have no faith that the doctor can make a competent one.

I'm looking around, trying to figure out if I can just slip over to my friends' table and order a real drink, but Dr. V says "Hey [Foulard], come over here if you want your martini!", and I have to comply. I request my normal gin up with a twist, and look back a moment later to see that a disturbing 'dirty martini' is being made. It's a cocktail glass stuffed with mashed-up bits of olive. "You've got to let it steep" Dr. V says, but I manage to correct her and then get a passable martini of the kind I requested, and eventually I drift over to Beebo & Co.

I think this dream is definitely influenced by my discomfort at work-related events, since they tend to be dreary (with a few exceptions), and my dislike of having to stand in line to get served. Most of the time I'd rather pay more to have a good experience. As far as martinis go, I can make one at home that's as good or better than most places, so I'm very picky.

The De-evolution of a funny joke

Once, many years ago, there was a movie that made being a stupid, loud drunk frat member at a third-rate state university very popular. The year was 1978, and the movie was National Lampoon's Animal House, which spawned 43,379 movies revolving around the theme of 'the slobs versus the snobs'. One of the few items available to commemorate this groundbreaking film was a poster of its star, John ('Bluto') Belushi, wearing a sweatshirt that said, amusingly, generically, 'COLLEGE', a sort of half-assed prop version of the standard apparel of any student.

Eventually, someone got around to manufacturing these sweatshirts (and t-shirts) for people to buy without having to go to a t-shirt shop and get it custom-made. But here's where it goes off the rails--someone decided that the joke was too subtle, and started making shirts that omit one L, just saying 'COLEGE', thus ruining the joke. Who buys these shirts? From my observation, it seems to be the sort of people who are contestants on reality TV shows. In other words, morons. Also, this guy from 'Chuck', who is apparently a moron.

Fatuous Model-ocity

I don't want to keep picking on aspirational online clothiers, but I was amused by a male model I saw while perusing the Banana Republic sweater selection. There are a limited number of poses for male models, and they vary depending on the company the model is representing. J. Crew and Banana Republic go for a faux-classic, pseudo-Ivy League look, and the models are instructed to look like casual, relaxed, affluent preppies. It's a sort of "say, let's all drive up to the family cottage and have a clambake, and I'm going to just recklessly throw on these old clothes and not shave" look. So the models go for a sort of bemused, fatuous look, with some variation of looking up/down while laughing, or smirking, or twinkling coyly, like this fellow on the right, who is really going overboard (the picture's a little clearer if you click on the photo):

In fact, he's overdoing it so much that the other models on the page are getting annoyed: Yes, hide your face in shame, fatuous sweater guy!

Where you goin'?

A trend of the past I-don't-know-how-many years that I don't get is pockets in pajama pants:

For the guy who wants to be stylishly snug in his bed (also appropriate for lounging by the fire, enjoying a leisurely cup of morning coffee or getting caught unawares by the delivery guy). We're gifting a pair to all the dapper gents on our list and making them extra-special with a monogram. In extra-fine, dress shirt-quality cotton, with contrast piping along the neck and front placket. Long sleeves. Patch chest pocket on shirt. Non-elastic waistband with self-fabric drawstring, off-seam pockets, back patch pocket on pants. Button at fly. Import. Machine wash.

First of all, the part about "getting caught unawares by the delivery guy" is kind of weird, unless J. Crew's target demographic is more limited than I thought. But more importantly, what is the point of pockets in pajama pants? The idea of pajamas is that you wear them at home, before and when you're going to bed. What could you possibly need to carry in the pockets that you can't just leave on your desk or coffee table? And if you are planning on wandering around, or stepping outside to get your morning paper, why not just get a nice monogrammed robe (with its appropriate pockets)?

Beanies: I hate 'em!

When I was a kid, if you said the word 'beanie', it meant something like this (with or without propeller):

(not a photo of me, though I did have a propeller beanie in 1976)

Some time in the last 10-15 years, the word has come to mean a sort of snug sock cap, popularized (I think) by snowboarders and the like, and then adopted by people who want to look like snowboarders:

("Me and my bros are hittin' the slopes and then doing an interview with Leeza Gibbons")

Now it's become a default part of the wardrobe of men under the age of 50.

(the watermarks were included free with this clip art!)

I have friends who wear them, so I know I'm probably treading on some toes here, but I just don't like 'em! I don't like their ubiquity, over-casualness, or the way they often make the wearer's head look too small. The default position seems to be to pull the beanie all the way down to the wearer's eyebrows, which reduces facial expressions down to one look of blank surliness:

(I know, I cheated by using a photo of Eminem to demonstrate that point)

(but still, they're not that great-looking)

In conclusion, bring back the bowler!