Challenged to Post, "Without Comment"

[It's been a minute since I wrote something here, but I thought I'd put this out there so I could easily reference it later should it become needed.]

Someone has challenged you over the next X days to post on some media platform pictures of:

 - Your favorite albums of all time.

 - The movies that were most influential on you.

 - The books could you read over and over.

 - The [some way of pretending to get random things] photo(s) on your phone. [1]

 - The food you blah blah blah . . . 

 - The place(s) you would yadda yadda yadda . . .

 - etc, etc, etc.

Let's be clear, I'm not opposed to these sorts of things.  I most likely am interested in what you might have to share.  After all, the reason we are ostensibly friends on whatever social media platform this is occurring on is because we both chose to be.  Thus, I probably care some amount about you and am interested at least on some level about who you are, what you care about, and other parts of you life.

But here's the supposed kicker, you have to post them, "without comment".  

Though I'm probably reading more dramatic emphasis into it than is really there, I always imagine it more like:

"I was challenged to post this, WITHOUT COMMENT!"  [Dum, dum, dummmmmmm!] [2]

But the question is, why?

Why wouldn't you comment?  What point is there to the whole thing if you don't comment?

Oh, here's some photo that seems important . . .

 . . .but I've no idea why.

Hey look, they like a movie that 90% of people like . . . 

 . . .  what a non-surprise.

They've read that famous book . . . 

. . . that millions of other people have read too.  

Complete non-shocker, and honestly, I don't care.

Of course if you were to comment then suddenly I do care.  Because now I know that the reason you picked that photo was because of [something meaningful and/or interesting].

Or maybe it wasn't.  Maybe you just like the way you look in that photo.  Or you just want to show the world your cute kid(s).

Maybe you just like that movie because of that one fight scene.  Or that one line.  Or because of that hot actor/actress is in it.  

And I suspect that's one of the real reasons people are so pleased to post "without comment".  Because they have nothing to say beyond, "I liked this."  Because their 10 things are completely banal and in truth uninteresting. 

A second reason is probably that after posting and commenting on 1 picture of their kid/dog/self/whatever that fulfills the requirement of this supposed challenge, they would really have nothing left to say on days 2 through 10.

A third reason, and most likely to most applicable is that people are lazy.

So, before I wrap this up.  Let me actually challenge you.

The next time someone "challenges" you to post pictures of whatever "without comment", I challenge you to completely ignore the lets 'o', 'u' and 't' in the word "without" and to post them WITH comments.

Because let's be honest.  One of the main reasons you accepted this "challenge" is that you were hoping people will think the things you picked are cool/interesting/say something about you, and/or that you want people to talk with you about it.  

There's nothing wrong with that, so skip the hoping someone will take the lame bait of a pic with no comments and start the conversation yourself.  

I for one will be way more likely to: 

 - pay attention

 - think about what you've posted for more than half a second

 - post a comment

And if the person who challenged you complains about your changing the rules, just reply to them with a link to this post.

Challenged to Post "Without Comment": D-

[1] - This is "Pretending to be random" because: A) if the randomly selected picture isn't something you want others to see; or B) isn't cool enough; or C) you really want to pick some other picture, we all know your just going to pick whatever you want.

[2] - That's a bad attempt at dramatic sounding music.

Prolonging the Magic

Prolonging the Magic: This is an album by the band Cake.  You remember Cake, they had a big hit with The Distance [1] off of their Fashion Nugget album.  Except that wasn't Cake.  I mean it was Cake that put out the album and sang the song, but it wasn't really Cake.  For that album they got a new producer or somesuch that totally "redesigned" the band to make them more marketable.  The result was The Distance and while it did well on the charts and all that, it made Cake into not Cake.[2] Prolonging the Magic is the album after that where Cake said 'forget that nonsense we're going to be Cake and not not Cake.'[3]

This is a great album.  They've really hit the stride they were trying to find in their first album and were forced to partially move away from in their second.  It's got all of the goodness you expect from Cake: sarcastic lyrics delivered in a serious voice, obscure references scattered throughout, trumpets scattered throughout and the band using everything that they can think of as a musical instrument.[4]

Some of my favorite songs off of the album are Sheep Go to Heaven, Cool Blue Reason, When You Sleep and even Satan is Motor.  If you want to give yourself a chuckle surf around the various 'lyrics meanings'   websites and see what people say this song is about.  On one sight there were about twenty different explanations, each one containing a section in which the erstwhile explainer politely apologizes to all of the previous posts about correcting them for how wrong the previous explanations were and how right theirs is.[5]

Also there's a pig on the CD cover.  That's got to be worth some positive points.

Prolonging the Magic: A






[1] - He's going the distance.  He's going for speed.  He's all alone (all alone) in his time of need.
[2] - What?  Are you confused?
[3] - Except that they didn't literally say that, but it would have been cool if they had.
[4] - I sometimes think the band tried to be a part of Stomp but got rejected for using things for instruments that were just too weird.
[5] - fwiw I am not 100% sure what it means but I do know that McCrea (the song writer) has emphatically stated that it is not a satanic song.  Personally I think it's just saying that we can dress ourselves up in shiny clothes and look nice, but were all base impulses on the inside.

California 37 (By Train)

California 37: I didn't think it would be possible for Train to follow up Save Me San Francisco with an equally great album.  Well they didn't.  If anything this one is better.

Granted I don't think there is a single hit on the album that will be able to touch the success of Hey, Soul Sister, but on the other hand this album doesn't really have any low points.  I like every song on the CD and upon first listening to the CD when it finished I promptly listened to it again and again.*

It's got the usual Train mixture of different musical styles and great lyrics.  My personal faves off the album are 50 Ways to Say Goodbye, Bruises, Drive By, This'll Be My Year and well really the whole CD.

If I have any problem with the CD it's that it does have a kind of darker undertone.  Several of the songs talk about heaven, dying and such.  It was enough to make me go search the Interweb to see if his wife was sick or something.  But evidently not.**

Anyway, to sum it up great album.  Go buy it.

Calilfornia 37: A

* - Trust me, three plays in a row is a rare occurrence.
** - Which is a good thing.

Maroon (by Barenaked Ladies)

In looking over the various posts I've had so far, I noticed there was not a lot of music, which is really odd because generally I listen to music much more than I read books and watch movies or TV.  I know in part it is because generally when I listen to music, I listen to my iPhone on shuffle or on a playlist of random songs and that doesn't really lend itself to grading (and therefore to posts).  So, I decided to make a conscious effort to listen to whole CD's.*

Maroon: This was the fifth album of the Barenaked Ladies and (in my opinion) anyway is the last of what was their best several CD's.  They really started to hit their stride with Born on a Pirate Ship.  Then came Stunt and then Maroon.

Now I'm not saying that they didn't have any good stuff after that, **  but as a whole the albums don't really measure up.  Which brings me (finally) to the first of two things I wanted to say in this post.

I don't understand why people are often so keen to not let themselves be identified by their success.  To explain, as I understand it, the guys in BNL felt like people were looking at them like they were the "Clowns of Rock and Roll"*** and so after Maroon they decided to try and make "more serious" music.

Why?

In the space of three albums**** they went from not quite completely obscure Canadian band to impossibly huge***** super popular band.  What's wrong with that, even if it is because people know you for writing quirky songs?  I love the BNL albums from that time and anyone who really likes the band enough to listen to whole albums (and not just the top radio songs) will see that you aren't just about clowning around.  And the people who don't listen to the albums now aren't going to start if you suddenly make them serious.

And it isn't just musicians who do this.  Actors will also suddenly quit off a popular hit show because they don't want people to think they are just that one character or because they think people love them so much they will flock to second or third tier movies they get cast in.******

My point is why kill the goose that's laying golden eggs?  Okay yes in this metaphor you are a goose pooping, but it is gold poop!


The second thing this album brings up is me making fun of people who review albums.*******  I remember when Maroon came out and I was either reading or listening to a review and they said something along the lines of, "BNL once again shows that they are able to take disparate images and weave them together."  To cite proof of that the reviewer brought up this series of lines.

Got a big chip.
You want a fat lip?
How 'bout a mouth full of Chiclets

Seriously?  Those are lines that have nothing to do with each other?  Did you bother to think at all before you wrote this review?  I don't think you did.

If I have somehow offended the person who wrote the review let me just say that I do not apologize.  If you'd like, I'll knock the chip off of your shoulder and punch you in the mouth.  If I did you might lose some teeth and gosh loose teeth are small white rectangles.  A lot like Chiclets, wouldn't you say?********

Anyway, the album is great.  I recommend Humour of the Situation as a song you probably haven't heard before but is classic BNL goodness.  If there is any song that I don't like 100% it is the bonus track "Hidden Sun".  It's kind of slow and depressing, but it is a fitting cool down after the activity of the rest of the album.

Maroon: A

* - Hopefully that doesn't make you sad.
** - I like BNL a lot and I own every album. (Hang on, let me check to make sure that isn't a lie.)  Okay, except for a rarities CD I'm telling the truth.  (btw, this confirmation accomplished with the power of Amazon.com)
*** - I may be misremembering the exact phrase I heard in one of their interviews, but that was the gist of it.
**** - Really in the space of two albums (Born on a Pirate Ship and Stunt).
***** - In a cultural consciousness sense and not necessarily a monetary one.
****** - Shelley Long, Anthony Edwards and Eric La Salle to name three off of the top of my head.  (Of course, George Clooney is laughing at me right now.)  And I bet most of the cast of Friends is thinking that a new TV show called "Still Friends" or "Friends Again" is sounding pretty good right now.
******* - Say Mr. B isn't that you just now?  (Hush.)
******** - Apparently I've been carrying around a bit of hostility for twelve years or so.

 

Underwater Sunshine (Counting Crows)

Underwater Sunshine (or what we did on our summer vacation) (Counting Crows)  It used to be commonplace for bands to record and release cover versions of other people's songs* and I think most people enjoy hearing their favorite bands singing good songs by other bands.  So when I found out that this album by Counting Crows was actually all cover versions I was pretty excited.  Upon reading the liner notes, I found out that it "was an unintentional theme . . . that a lot of the songs on this record aren't well known."**  Which made me less excited. Of the fifteen songs on the CD, I was actually familiar with five of them.  However, all of the songs have that distinctive Counting Crows sound.  So even if you haven't heard of any of these songs and assuming you like Counting Crows*** then the CD sounds like a bunch of Counting Crows songs.  Personally, I found the first half of the CD to be the weaker half.  Things picked up more at the end, but then again most of the songs I already knew were on the back half, so that may have had something to do with it.  In the end, this is not one of my favorite Counting Crows albums**** but it's definitely something that I will play again.*****

Underwater Sunshine: B



* - The Beatles first album is full of cover versions.
** - From the liner notes
*** - And if you don't, why did you buy the album?
**** - In no particular order those would be: Hard Candy, August and Everything After and Recovering the Satellites.
***** - If only so that I can get Amie stuck in my head again.