#sorry if this ain’t like top tier I’ve been feelin bad all week

[wholeheartedwonders]

uhhh bro shufflemancy if you don't mind? maybe about a relationship with mom lalonde.

got it! as usu: please take it with a grain of salt; whatever i spew here is just my thoughts from the song i got, not fact. i’m just a dude with a phone after all. 

(also, i will be addressing mom lalonde as roxy since it feels a bit odd calling her mom for me. ^^;)

with that in mind, the song i got was recently, by liana flores.

-★-

this song is about someone struggling to gain the energy to do much of anything. usually, they’d be very social and active, but recently, they’ve been unable to. to me, this is in roxy’s perspective. she struggled a lot with doing things and talking to people, especially later on in your life. she lacked energy. because of this, you were someone she often relied on when it came to her troubles. maybe it had to do with her alcoholism or just her emotions in general. hopefully, this stayed as a healthy relationship, but it seems like she could have been the only one being supported. when you would come to her, she may have brushed your problems off. perhaps not in a rude way though, more like having a gentle topic switch. i believe that this could have been simply because she didn’t know how to help and comfort you, but you would know better than me.

whatever you find through the song lyrics and this reading are up to you. my words are not an “end all". i hope this helps, and if not, i can do another.

[theworstbob]

the thing journal: 4.9.2017 - 4.15.2017

scattered thoughts about the 7+ new things i took in last week. this week: japandroids, metric, pusha t, inside llewyn davis, anthony hamilton, brandy clark, kendrick lamar, kubo and the two strings, and moonlight

1) Celebration Rock, by Japandroids: THIS WEEK: EXTRA-CAPSULE-Y REVIEWS OF ALBUMS I THOUGHTLESSLY ADDED ON MY PREFERRED STREAMING SERVICE THAT I NOW FEEL OBLIGATED TO LISTEN TO. This is the sort of meat-and-potatoes-y rock music I like but don't do much more with. It doesn't feel as Midwest-y as The Hold Steady does, so I appreciate it more, but it's definitely in that Hold Steady school of music I smile politely at but struggle to connect with, and that's definitey owing more to my own special brand of cynicism than it is to any flaw in this album. It's very good, it just needs to be sorted to the Not For Me pile.

2) Fantasies, by Metric: This album was added because I wanted to listen to more releases from 2009, since, before I made a point of seeking out 2009 music, I had listened to, I dunno, three albums made that year? Because I got MAD depressed that year. And it's always fun to dive into a band's older works after being introduced to them with their most recent stuff. I listened to Pagans in Vegas and loved it, which is how this ended up on the Project 2009 list, and this is a cool album in its own right, but I'm listening to this album with the perspective of someone who knows this band's future, and it's like, okay, this is cool, but while I'm not sure how to place what they added between then and now, I am able to tell it's not here, I can kinda hear how these songs aren't as electronic-y (music term) and could have used that extra little oomph (also a music term).

3) King Push: Darkest Before Dawn, by Pusha T: This is maybe my favorite prelude to an album that still hasn't been released 1.333 years after the prelude dropped of all time. I'm not sure there's a rapper in that second-tier, that level just below a Kendrick or Killer Mike or Danny Brown, more reliable than Pusha T. Pusha T appears on a song or releases an album, and I know exactly what I'm getting, a solidly written and delivered thing that's probably about dealing drugs. He's been doing this thing for over 15 years, and he's always managed to keep it fresh, which is pretty astonishing, and he's able to make a compelling enough prelude that it still holds up on its own 1.333 years later.

4) Inside Llewyn Davis, dir. Joel Coen & Ethan Coen: A few weeks ago, I mentioned really digging The Bombpops' song "Fear of Missing Out" because it was a song, in some small part, about realizing the futility of pursuing a creative career, on trying to balance being a rock star with working a normal job, so of fucking course I loved The Coen Brothers' take on roughly the same concept. When would I not enjoy a sad movie about creative failures with Coen-y characters and Coen-y humor? ("That Jean... I'd sure like to fuck her." is a line I saw coming a million miles away that made me so happy when it actually happened.)

5) What I'm Feelin', by Anthony Hamilton: I enjoyed this R&B album on a bus ride home from work! I think dude's a tremendous singer, I enjoyed most of these songs, and I'm still not exactly in a place where I have anything to offer an R&B album much beyond "I liked you!"

6) 12 Stories, by Brandy Clark: Like I can connect to a country album's sadness because I've been listening to country since I was a kid, and listening to country willingly since I realized "You Lie" was a jam, but R&B is a genre I didn't engage with as a kid much farther than John Legend, so it's easy for me to tell what makes an album like this great -- sad stories about broken people, folksy references that skirt the edges of country cliche, heartbreaking details about the American lower class ("We pray to Jesus and we play the lotto/'Cuz there ain't but two ways we can change tomorrow" is a devastating chorus for a first track) -- because it's what I've spent time with. I need to work harder on understanding what makes an Anthony Hamilton album great. Like, I enjoyed that one Jazmine Sullivan album a couple years ago, I should be able to dig into a What I'm Feelin' and find all the things I can love there.

7) DAMN., by Kendrick Lamar: ...Do I need to reserve judgement until we get confirmation that the fan theory of a secret double album is nonsense? Or should I reserve judgement until I can separate this album from my anticipation? Two of Kendrick's albums are probably in my all-time Top 50, and Section.80 might be in there, as well. I don't like coming at albums from a perspective where I'm expecting them to be among my all-time favorites, but that is the standard Kendrick has set. It's really fucking good. It's a collection of amazing songs by the one musician who's probably better at his thing than anyone else alive is at their thing. It's not good kid level earth-shattering or TPAB-level ambitious, and it's insane to me that this album, by this artist, could ever feel underwhelming to me, that I've listened to this album twice and am saying, "Number two for the year so far. Tsk, tsk, I expected more, Kendrick." Maybe it's because I gave myself a day and two spins to really get to know this album. (Of course, TPAB is an album I've only listened to all the way through twice, and I have no problem hailing that as a masterpiece. That album is challenging, though, not just in its thematic content, but in its delivery, if I haven't called TPAB a David Lynch film before, I'm saying it now. Also, it's kind of weird that I feel bad about reviewing an album after one listen but have no problem proffering film/TV opinions after one watch.) It's a concise record delivered with confidence that I'm going to listen to again and again. That's all I know for sure.

8) Kubo and the Two Strings, dir. Travis Knight: got damn what a fucking gorgeous film Like, I hate that the best display device in my apartment is my laptop monitor, because my laptop is kind of garbage? And there were times where it could not handle this film, when the picture quality was not what this film demanded. I want to see this movie in an environment where I can, like, see this movie, actually see this movie in an environment where I don't have to deal with quality loss. I honestly feel like I insulted this movie by watching it on Netflix with earbuds and inconsistent picture quality, I did a disservice to the craftsmanship and love that built every single goddamned frame. There was a moment early on in the film where the character stuttered, and THEY ANIMATED THE STUTTER. THEY ANIMATED HIS FUCKING MOUTH STUTTERING. LIKE OH MY GOSH, YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO, BUT YOU DID AND I LOVE YOU AND I'M SORRY.

9) Moonlight, dir. Barry Jenkins: This movie was made for basically the same amount of money as CBS pays the dude who plays Sheldon on The Big Bang Theoy. That's so amazing. It feels weird to wave a flag for a film that won some sort of award for being a good movie, but this is such a strong fucking movie. It's such a visually astonishing movie, using its Florida setting to incredible effect (it must have been the worst to shoot in the wind, but man, those scenes with the strong wind blowing on the beach looked so cool), doing all these things with color I haven't been able to fully parse. (That scene where the kid's mom is bathed in red light, screams four words at her son, stalks into her bedroom, and closes the door and leves the kid staring at a green hallway was perfect.) This is this dude's second film. That's insane. Like again, it feels weird to stand up for a film the Academy stood up for, but everyone needs to see this film, everyone needs to see this story and see the way this dude tells it.