The Subjugation of Subjectivity

Somewhere in the past ten years or so there has been a seismic shift in people's ability to handle subjectivity. Opinions, while proffered at unprecedented rates, transmogrified from simple observations and standpoints into full-fledged mission statements and personal philosophies; modern Americans have so much of their self-esteem tied up in their viewpoints that they no longer view them as malleable manifestos but rather as rigid truisms--ones that they must convince others are not simply the right ones but in some cases the only ones. Whether it's about something as intimate as one's personal politics and religion or as inane as musical or television preferences, people have inexorably entangled their self-worth in their opinions...and it's driving me crazy.

I'm a voracious consumer of music--it's easily the most important passion I have and is something that I partake in daily whether by listening, writing, or playing it on guitar and piano. My love of music has its genesis in my early childhood but it didn't fully take root until the mid to late '90s when I began to explore it more deeply. Growing up, my mother always had the radio on and there was no shortage of records and cassette tapes arranged next to the stereo. In the mid-'90s my parents got me my first CD player and, having nothing to listen to on it, my father took me to the Wiz on Avenue U to pick up a few albums. Among them were Billy Joel's "The River of Dreams," Seal's self-titled 1994 release, and the Batman Forever soundtrack. I remember loving the first album, being indifferent about the second, and having a mixed reaction to the third.

From 1997 through 2001 (incidentally the breadth of my time in high school), I began to refine my taste in music and drastically expanded my collection from radio classics to then-current alternative rock, nu-metal, and rap. Some of my favorite albums still today came out during that time and I remember discussing them extensively with my friends--both musically inclined and casual listeners in their own rights. We had our favorite bands with preferred albums and tracks among them; what we didn't have was the petty, puerile arguments that dominate discourse in 2016--not just about music but about everything.

I was so stoked when Korn released their new album in October and then again when Metallica's first release in eight years dropped last month. For as excited as I was about hearing the music though I was equally and oppositely dreading the inevitable explosion of ersatz experts on my favorite guitar site and on Facebook proffering their insipid musings about both. The torrential shitstorm of commentary that ensued though far exceeded the conjecture I was anticipating.

See, the problem is that it's s no longer enough simply to have an opinion on something. It used to be that people could engage in discussion about things without it turning into an argument with egos on the line. Sure there was always the odd argumentative type who would turn anything into a debate but nowadays it feels like everyone does that. Facebook, Twitter, and the like abound with faux perspicacious peripatetics spewing their uninformed diatribes, obscenely overcomplicating things that should be way simpler and that exist almost solely for our entertainment and enjoyment.

Take the Metallica release for example. At its most basic level, here's what happened: a band released an album comprised of a dozen songs. Here's what should have ensued: people made a decision to buy or refrain from buying the album based upon their feelings about the band; the ones who did make the purchase then decided whether they liked the album or not.

That's it! No rocket science involved--no smarmy, pathological pedantry. IS that what happened? Not hardly!

Aside from the requisite trolls who came to comment about how much they can't stand Metallica or how awful the band is (something that I still can't comprehend--do these people go into restaurants or stores that sell food and products that they dislike or have no use for just to pass judgement upon those places despite having exactly zero use for or interest in their offerings?), you had actual FANS of the band parsing through the album--dissecting it to the point of idiocy. I saw comments about the following:

Metallica trying too hard to sound like "the old" Metallica.

Metallica needing to sound more like "the old" Metallica.

The album sounding too much like the last album (Death Magnetic).

How washed up the band is/how terrible the band's live performances are.

The songs are too long.

How terrible Lars is.

I'm not saying there isn't any sort of veridical value in these statements nor am I trying to say that they aren't valid viewpoints; my gripe instead is that these are even issues at all for people in the first place. Look--I get wanting a band to sound like they used to. There's a lot of emotion and memory tied up in that era of personal discovery when it comes to bands but people often fail to consider the human and creative aspects of making music; writing fast, heavy, angry songs as a teenager works when you're that age but it might not necessarily still apply when you're middle-aged. Metallica, in particular, consists of some pretty old dudes and Lars in particular is fifty two years old! After playing this style of music literally for decades I'd be shocked if he didn't lose a step physically in terms of his playing; ditto for James and Kirk as well.

My problem with the Metallica album along with everything else is people's seemingly innate need to deride shit--to manufacture this sham sense of superiority in an effort to elevate themselves. It's become:

"Oh? You like the new album? Yeah, it's okay I guess. I mean it's not as good as Master or Kill Em All. Actually, I could barely sit through most of the songs. I'm done with Metallica. They're garbage."

The same thing happens with television shows. People no longer get behind a show and stay there. Instead, they live and die with every episode: one night it's the greatest show on television and the next it's full-on, "I'm DONE with this show." The Walking Dead is one of the biggest victims of this type of behavior and it stems mostly from a separate issue of folks demanding instant gratification and having non-existent attention spans. Two of the most incredible episodes of the series had comparatively little gore and violence and, perhaps unsurprisingly, they are among the show's lowest rated. They weren't artsy, highbrow pieces nor were they dialogue-heavy slogs; instead, they took what makes The Walking Dead great aside from the gore, violence, and special effects--the atmosphere, the inner/emotional turmoil (both for the characters themselves and the viewers), and the ability to evoke a very real sense of terror and dread--and they maximized them to great effect.


Think about it: would a show like LOST have a snowball's chance in hell of making it through six full seasons if it started airing today? I doubt it! In 2004, millions of people watched the first few episodes and had the same simultaneous response: "What the hell is going on!?" Back then (it feels like 112 years ago instead of the decade and change that it actually was), that was enough to get people interested in the show and to maintain that interest for years on end. They didn't decide from episode to episode whether this was the greatest show on television or the worst: they recognized that the writers were telling a story and they wanted to see where that journey would take them.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, towards the end of the show's run, people began to grow disenfranchised with the aforementioned story. It took too many twists and demanded too much from them to keep their fandom and hold their interest; the genesis of the modern mindset was already beginning to be seen. Lost was judged suddenly on a per-episode basis with more and more people jumping ship--citing "this season (5 or 6 in particular) sucked--it was wAaAaaAy better in season 1 or 2."

People are clearly entitled to their opinions but my problem is two-fold: if you're going to pass judgement on something then at least have a reason for that critique OR, if you can't qualify that stance, at least don't try to act like you're basing it upon some unspeakable enlightenment that the rest of us mere mortals are incapable of processing or at the very least aren't privy to. I don't understand why things (bands, albums, songs, television shows, movies) can no longer be viewed in isolation--assessed based solely upon their individual merits. At their core, why can't the Metallica songs be good or bad--ones that you like or don't like? Why do television shows and movies have to be judged on the whole based upon isolated instances of mediocrity?

Again, my problem isn't the negative opinions that people have about things--it's how shallow and uninformed those statements ultimately wind up being. If you ask someone who says, "Eh. Metallica's sucked since The Black Album" WHY Metallica has sucked since The Black Album then you'd like to think there would be a well-thought out reason; more often than not though all you get is fluff, rhetoric, or circular reasoning. If you're going to start a debate about something or take a differing stance then you should at least be able to articulate YOUR OWN STANCE ESPECIALLY if you're shitting all over someone else's!

My plea though is just for folks to take a step back (or one down off of their soapboxes) and just enjoy shit for whatever it is. Either you like it or you don't so why not just leave it at that? Just because there are schisms of opinions doesn't mean either side is wrong or somehow less valid or worthy than the other. It's okay to take a dissenting stance and not feel the need to put down the other side simply to make yourself feel worthy or righteous. I just can't wrap my head around the schizophrenic way in which people approach their recreational activities! How enervating must it be to listen to a twelve song album and, with each track go, "LOVE IT. BEST BAND EVER. UGH. HATE IT. SO OVER THESE GUYS. THEY'RE THE WORST. OMG LOVE THIS ONE. THESE GUYS STILL HAVE IT! THIS IS TOTAL GARBAGE."?

I miss the days when opinions were just that: responses to a yes or no type of question. Did you like the movie? Yeah--thought it was great/Nah, it wasn't my cup of tea. What do you think of the new album? It's awesome/It's terrible. Don't get me wrong--I'm all for having a meaningful discussion about something but the problem is that most people no longer engage in actual discourse. It's become: I think this, I'm right, I don't care what you think because you're wrong. People don't take the time to listen to other people's viewpoints and, if they do, they rarely resist the urge to convince them why their opinion is the wrong one!

I'm just amazed by the capriciousness that defines people's perspectives and how alarmingly incapable they are of backing up whatever claims they make. "This was the worst _____ ever...because." Is it really that hard to go that extra step and to explain why you feel that way? There'd be so much less bickering and unnecessary arguing if only that seemingly trivial act were to occur with greater frequency.

Then again, what do I know?

Everyone's a critic.

The Power of Silence

Silence, in all its forms, can be one of the most destructive forces in existence. It is a perplexing dichotomy--a perfect marriage of two opposing effects elicited from the same catalytic source. Silence can heal and silence can kill: it can condemn and absolve. It can provide for moments of contemplative introspection or it can feel like the weight of the world.

I have been reflecting upon the power of silence lately because I have encountered it in numerous forms. There are people I was once close with with whom I will likely never speak again. This type of long-term silence is at once enervating and invigorating. I have been the victim of the so-called silent treatment before and know all too well the pain that being shunned brings with it but, unexpectedly, the same circumstance with different people can bring about an entirely different response. By shedding these negative influences from my life I feel free--as if I have been liberated by the shackles of the past. This seemingly simple silence has washed away the poison that festered in my heart allowing me to look forward to the future; it has rendered me cancer-free in a mental and emotional sense.

Silence certainly has its healing properties. I love my kids more than anything but there is certainly a yearning for a few moments of solitude by the end of the day. There is a peacefulness that accompanies the bedtime rituals--calm and quiet to help whisk them away to the land of dreams. Then, in the tranquil time that ensues, the silence that fills the house is restorative and rejuvenating--replenishing my patience and energy for the next day.

Silence is integral to music as well oftentimes offering as much in the way of musical meaning as rhythm and melody; rests can fill sonic space in a way that no number of notes or chords ever could. It provides a sense of anticipation and can be the source of the heaviest moment in a heavy song or the darkest, most ominous one in a dark tune. Two of my favorite examples come from songs from the late '90s/early '00s. If you listen from 2:25 to 2:52 on Incubus' Pardon Me, you'll see that the dip in volume and that brief silence before the final chorus renders the closing section all the more powerful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhZvDJ2opsM

The frenetic, upbeat tempo of the Foo Fighters' tune Monkey Wrench has a similar moment of anticipation built in to the end of the intro:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKp5v588-Vs

Still, there is a dark side to silence--one that, in many ways, overshadows its positive aspects. Social silence can be demeaning whether it occurs in person or digitally. I know this type of silence doesn't bother some people but it absolutely infuriates me because of the implied denigration. Picture yourself sitting at a table with friends. The group is carrying on a conversation with each member participating in turn though in no particular order. You offer up an observation or a quip...a moment of silence ensues...and the conversation carries on as if you never spoke. How does that make you feel? For me, that act of dismissal is one of the most derogatory things that can happen in a social setting. I'd be less offended by someone telling me off to my face with a string of colorful expletives than I would someone completely ignoring something that I said.

Silence often reminds us of loss and conflict. Parents fighting and yelling undeniably has a negative impact on children but how much worse is it to live amid the tension that comes with icy silence between one's parents? Silence is what often fills the room as one awaits test results in a doctor's office...and what comes from the other end of the phone line when bad news is delivered.

Victims of abuse are often shamed into silence; when many do find the courage to speak up, they are either met with silence or told to keep quiet (at least at many, many institutions of higher education where the cash cow sports teams matter more than victims' rights). Lying by omission is by its very definition the act of remaining silent to suppress the truth--ethical elision at its finest. When people fail to speak up in defense of another or when they fail to correct an egregious error their silence can have a far-reaching impact.
 
The most poignant destructive distinction of silence though comes with the assumptions that we seem compelled to draw when we encounter it socially. How many quiet girls who abstain from friendly communication get dubbed bitchy or priggish--snobs who think they're too good to talk to others simply by the act of keeping quiet? I met a few including my wife in college who were unjustly and improperly judged and who suffered as a result of these specious suppositions levied upon them; they were wallflowers assumed to be elitist divas.

Young children, too, are forced to bear the burden of their verbal reticence. How many kids respond with silence to well-meaning adults who try to engage them in conversation and are then questioned as to their mental faculties? They can't merely be shy or simply not in the mood to speak with a stranger--no no, instead, there "must be something wrong with them."

This assessment of cognitive capabilities is the one that I find most troubling and the one that has occupied my mind the most of late. For many native-born Americans there is this bizarre connection that is drawn between silence and intellectual function. How many folks see an immigrant who doesn't speak English--regardless of race, mind you--and automatically assume that, because of their silence in responding to questions, that they are intellectually inferior or even mentally retarded? How many of these supposed imbeciles, in turn, were professionals of distinction in their home countries? Doctors, lawyers, engineers? How many mocking epithets were hurled at these people especially as children by their classmates?

I spent almost a half an hour on Tuesday night speaking with the father of one of my son's flag football teammates. He speaks English fluently but has enough of an accent that I suspected that he emigrated from elsewhere; what I couldn't have predicted was the magnitude of his actual life story. Having already served in a war as a native son of Montenegro, he decided to exile himself from his homeland when he was recruited to engage in the Yugoslavian conflict of the early 1990s. He engaged in a harrowing journey that took him first to Germany, then to Mexico, and, ultimately, across the border and into the United States where he had family awaiting him.

He came to New York City without speaking or understanding a word of English. He lived first in Brooklyn and then in Staten Island, working and going to school to provide for himself and his family, spending his spare moments engaged in labor as opposed to the sports and games that his neighbors enjoyed. He taught himself English, worked his way through his adolescence, and ultimately came to be in charge of a significant construction company. He now provides for several children of his own giving them all of the things that he never had and shielding them from the atrocities that he endured all for the sake of their own peaceful existences. He does so in silence, never burdening them with the pain that marred his early life.

I thought of him earlier today when I was at the doctor's office with my son. I watched a white woman explaining to a Hispanic man the paperwork and procedures that he needed to fill out before his son could be seen. It was obvious that he didn't speak English and didn't understand most of what she said--particularly in the way he and his wife proceeded to pore over the paperwork like a test given in a foreign language (which, in a way, is precisely what it was). Meanwhile, she's holding their baby and trying to comfort their older son who is in a cast and still with a hospital bracelet around his wrist, wincing every few seconds as tears of pain sprang to his eyes.

I thought of my own recent ordeal with my son--the time spent at the hospitals and the slew of assorted doctor's visits that we've endured. I thought of how draining it has been for us and then I thought of that man and his family. Can you imagine how much worse it must be to go through those things--emergency room visits, ambulance rides--doctors and nurses trying to explain things to you while your child is suffering in pain...and not understanding most of what they are saying? Responding, more often than not, with silence?

Don't get me wrong--I am a firm believer that anyone who wants to live here should, at some point, learn English. I understand how incredibly difficult it is for older folks who make their way here but at the same time I also believe that it is the single most important thing that an immigrant can do. If I decided to move to France, Spain, or the Middle East then I would be damn sure to work as hard as I could to learn to speak the respective languages. Often the burden is laid upon the children of immigrants to be the translators and go-betweens and I'm sure that in at least some of those instances it's not for a lack of trying on the parts of the parents.

With that said, there's clearly a learning curve involved--one that has nothing to do with intellectual faculties. I think of Gonzalo Le Batard--one of my favorite sports entertainment personalities. He fled Cuba and was able to build a life for his wife and two sons in Florida while so many of his relatives remained trapped in Castro's time capsule. One glance at the Tweets and Facebook comments written about him tells you everything you need to know about the perception towards non-native English speakers in this country. Mr. Le Batard is fluent in English but clearly picked it up as a second language. How many people listen to him speak and think that he is unintelligent or mentally defective? How many people know that he was an engineer in Cuba? That he came here and earned an American engineering degree in his second language?

Think about that for a second. This man, who is routinely derided and called stupid (or worse) did something that many native-born Americans can't do...in his weaker language? If you have a four year or specialized degree then can you imagine going to school in a different country and earning that same degree in a second language that you didn't even learn until you were an adult?

The closest experiences I have come from trips I took to Puerto Rico and Ireland. Puerto Rico was the first country I've ever gone to where English wasn't the dominant language spoken or written in and even then it's still a part of the United States! I remember wanting to take photographs at the capitol building in San Juan and not being sure if I was allowed to. I used my piss-poor gringo Spanish to ask a security guard if it was okay and I barely understood what she said in response...so I nodded and smiled. She nodded and smiled quietly in return, giving me a thumbs up. She might've been giving me the approval for the photos or maybe she thought there was something wrong with the grown man with the childlike Spanish pronunciation; another silent gulf.

As apprehensive as I was in Puerto Rico, it was even worse in Ireland, if you can believe it. I mean, we are talking about a place where the people not only speak the same language as me and enjoy a nearly identical cultural background as me--they even look exactly like me! And yet, it was my first time being in what was, to me, a faraway, foreign country. The language wasn't so much an issue as the customs were. I didn't think of it until my wife and I left the hotel to head into Dublin and had to get on the bus. I realized that I had no idea how the bus worked. I knew that it would be easy enough to ask...but I was afraid of looking stupid.

I was in a place that was as close to being identical to home as it could be and still be different--the closest thing to a foreign comfort zone as possible...and I was still petrified of being judged and ridiculed. It made me think of the few foreign students I encountered as a student growing up in Brooklyn. I remember the abuse they took and I can only imagine the effect it had on them.

I think now again of the father of the boy on my son's flag football team. Can you picture yourself as a child and him suddenly showing up in your elementary school class? The new kid who stares blankly at the teacher--unresponsive when prompted for an answer? Who blinks and nods instead of speaking up? Can you imagine the fear that he must have felt--not wanting to be made fun of, not wanting to be thought of as stupid for the way he spoke or for his lack of understanding of an utterly foreign language? Can you picture the other kids laughing at him? The names they must have called him? A boy who wanted nothing more than a better shot at life than he had back home.

There is an alarming lack of empathy that is exhibited by people when it comes to immigrants. These people are presumed to be something that they are not and it sickens me; it also stems from one simple experiential factor: those who sit in judgment have never been put in a similar situation. I would be shocked if any of them have found themselves in a foreign country where they didn't speak the language and were forced to engage in daily functions with absolutely no help and then still had the gall to judge the immigrants who come here seeking a better life. Would you be able to muster up the courage to work shitty, low-paying jobs to give your kids a chance that literally millions of people take for granted--one that they have never given a second thought throughout their entire lives? Would you be able to be that kid--the one who gets laughed at and picked on because he or she dresses differently and doesn't speak the language correctly if at all? That teenager whose entire life has been uprooted suddenly in a place that might as well be an alien world? That feeling of awkwardness and wanting desperately to fit in but being utterly incapable of doing so?

Do you know what the answer most often is to these questions when I pose them to folks who barely interact with people of other cultures--particularly those who came here from somewhere else? The single most common response?



Silence.

Why Fear The Walking Dead is Failing in its Mission (Spoilers within)

Please note that this entry contains potentially MAJOR spoilers for Fear the Walking Dead, The Walking Dead, Breaking Bad, LOST, and Better Call Saul. Please also note that this is entirely subjective in nature and is not intended to offend or inflame anyone who holds these shows near and dear.

I was thrilled when I first heard about a new companion show to The Walking Dead. For me, few programs have ever approached the amalgam of success that The Walking Dead has fostered and improved upon during its run on AMC. The characters are engrossing as they are written but even better are the performances by their respective actors; the dialogue is often meaningful and thought-provoking--the special effects and settings are inimitable; and the action sequences are among the best television has ever produced.

With that said, I had the highest of hopes for Fear the Walking Dead before it began and now, after the past few weeks of painful squirming, I feel like I am on the verge of tapping out. I can count the number of shows that I've bailed on on one hand, which makes this all the more disappointing. I don't watch a lot of television to begin with and so the shows that I watch I usually get behind early and remain an ardent supporter of even through their often untimely demises (Playmakers, Tilt, Invasion, Jericho, Firefly, and the Whispers to name but a few).

Upon further reflection, I feel like the overarching reason that spurs on my bowing out of viewership of a given show is simply this: a drastic departure from the initial driving conflict or style. The shows that hook me do so without any flashy gimmicks or over-the-top premises; instead, I find myself compelled to care about one thing or another--sometimes the characters, the circumstances they find themselves in, or even the time or setting of the show. When one or more of those things change for the worse then I find myself questioning whether or not I am wasting my time; I have reached that point with Fear the Walking Dead.

To provide a final preparatory example--I remember being excited to hear that Under the Dome would be coming to television. Admittedly not one of Stephen King's best stories (or at least not one of his strongest endings), it was still compelling enough to render me intrigued. I hopped on board from the premiere episode and, though concerned by some of the creative liberties taken by the show's writers and producers, I felt like it was worth sticking with. Then, as has happened with so many shows of late, things took a bizarre turn and the show transmogrified into an unrecognizable shell of itself; in short, it lost sight of its original direction.

For me, LOST is still the greatest show I've ever seen (Breaking Bad was a better show but because I watched it after its television run I missed out on the week-to-week cliffhanging aspect along with the communal discussion that followed each episode of the two shows) but it wasn't without its warts. Most of the things that bothered people about the show didn't perturb me in the least. The reason for this is simple: the things that I was interested in learning about I knew wouldn't come until the very end. Again, many people griped about how things concluded but I was satisfied because I understood that a) not every answer would be hand fed to the viewers and b) it didn't feel like a cop out.

Part of what made LOST stumble in the middle of its run is also at the heart of what has been making Fear the Walking Dead almost unwatchable. The characters, at times, have been running in circles--recordings looping ad infinitum. Think about LOST and those two seasons or so where, in every episode, one group of characters went into the jungle looking for another character or group of characters. It seemed like every episode repeated this trope as if signaling that the writers simply didn't know where to take the show; I feel like the same thing is happening on Fear.

How many more times will we have to hear Madison and Strand argue? Or Madison and Travis? Or Travis/Madison/Strand with Daniel? How many self-indulgent emo moments will Chris subject us to? I hated Nick in season one because of the repetition but he's arguably the only one who is interesting in season two! He's changed enough to warrant our buying into.

Here's the problem: Fear the Walking Dead was pitched initially as a prequel of sorts to The Walking Dead. The primary draw was being able to see the devolution that fans of the latter missed out on by way of Rick Grimes' comatose state. We were promised to see the gradual unraveling of society with an emphasis on how these everyday people would first encounter and then ultimately cope with the unthinkable. It would likely be a far more psychological and emotional source of terror that these characters would face as opposed to the corporeal horror that has captivated us for more than half a decade in the world of The Walking Dead.

Now, admittedly, it's incredibly difficult to build the necessary amount of tension in only a six episode season (as season one was) BUT--and this is an important but--it is hardly impossible. One need look only a day and a time slot ahead to Better Call Saul to see a show that did not allow its length to limit its storytelling ability. Some fans of Saul expected to see Jimmy McGill's transformation be complete by the end of season one if not season two but the fact that (*SPOILER ALERT*) that hasn't happened yet is a testament to the storytelling abilities of Gilligan and Gould.

Think for a second about what these two have managed to do: they took a minor character from arguably the biggest show in history--one whose outcome we already know--and have managed to make a compelling narrative not about what happens after Breaking Bad but what happens before and presumably during it.

Masterful.

For Saul's writers the intention was at the beginning and continues to be the transformation of Jimmy McGill into Saul Goodman. The assumption is that this will occur at some point but the purpose is the journey not the end result. Fear the Walking Dead could have and should have taken a cue from this.

In only six episodes of Fear they ran through the entirety of what they wanted the show to be about. Again, I understand that they weren't sure of whether or not there would be future seasons but neither did Into the Badlands! They told enough of the story to end it on a compelling note but left MANY doors wide open to keep the narrative going. And what did Fear do?

They took us out to sea.

Seriously? The show was supposed to be this insightful slow burner that brought us into the heart of society's collapse and instead we're stuck in season one with Madison whining about Nick multiple times an episode, Travis trying too hard to be the good guy and to do the right thing, and Chris and Alicia rendering themselves incapable of being rooted for as the angsty, too-old teens. At times the performances were competent and the moments captivating but until Strand and Salazar entered the fray the show was, at best, treading water.

And so we find ourselves in season two on a boat--the characters as lost on turbid water as we are as viewers of a show that is clearly adrift. There is little beyond a superficial level that is worth rooting for in these characters and their often overwrought performances (Madison as moralizer, Strand as the aloof pseudo-villain, Nick as the detached antihero). This of course falls on the writers and producers of the show and not the actors who are clearly doing the best that they can with what they are given.

Again though: this was supposed to be a show that we would get behind emotionally because of our ability to relate to the characters and their predicament. We root for who we do in The Walking Dead because those characters exhibit the aspects of ourselves that we suppress but secretly wish we could employ. We have been given reasons to root for these people over several seasons! Remember Carol early on? Most people couldn't stand her! Then, at least until the last few episodes of season six, she was arguably the best character on a show with Daryl Dixon and Rick Grimes!

The problem with Fear the Walking Dead is that it was rushed through the exact thing that made it interesting in the first place. In only six episodes we're basically where we start off in The Walking Dead. Worse, in only a few more episodes, we find ourselves nearly caught up to speed in terms of the mindsets that Rick and company have taken literally years to develop.

Stay with me on this: at the beginning of Fear the Walking Dead, Madison is a high school guidance counselor with a sordid set of circumstances at home. She exhibits a willingness to defend her family at all costs but hardly the acumen becoming of a postapocalyptic survivor--even when facing the recently-risen familiar faces of a coworker and neighbor.

Fast forward to tonight's episode and, BARELY THREE WEEKS LATER, she is *SPOILER ALERT* leading the charge on a rescue mission with gun in hand to retrieve her husband and daughter.

Think about that: in twenty or twenty-one days these people are supposed to have gone from completely normal (and clueless about the undead I might add) to fucking cold blooded experts!? Connor, the presumed antagonist only an episode ago, seems to have managed to arrange an intricate pirating gig for himself despite being a normal, everyday person less than twenty days earlier. I'm all for suspension of disbelief when it comes to my fiction...but that's pretty fucking ridiculous.

Again, I understand that art imitates life only to an extent and so, in theory, it's plausible that these people could undergo such drastic changes in such a short amount of time...except for one thing: the whole point of the show was supposed to be normalcy not evolution. It was supposed to be about the journey that these characters took to reach the point of Rick and the Atlanta survivors at the beginning of The Walking Dead. Twenty days simply doesn't cut it!

I remember when Hurricane Sandy hit our area. We were without power for six days but a few of the neighboring regions went much, much longer without it. During that time of being off the grid there were lootings and a general sense of unease but the entire fabric of society managed to stay intact. Even in the places that were the hardest hit (like Staten Island and southern Brooklyn) people managed to retain their humanity. No one became a bloodlusting murderer or an Anton Chigurh-inspired pirate. There were no primal orgies in the streets or inversions of societal norms. There were ordinary people coping with extraordinary circumstances with the intention of returning to a previous way of life.

Fear the Walking Dead is based on a far more calamitous premise and yet these characters go from being utterly clueless about their circumstances to exerting their wills in highly unlikely fashions. You've got Nick becoming a secret agent of sorts--Madison the gun-toting superhero. Strand the not-so-bad-guy. Arguably the only character who might have performed such a feat on The Walking Dead was Shane and he was a goddamn sociopath!

And therein lies the rub: these characters have become caricatures of themselves--almost completely unbelievable to varying degrees. Give me a break!

Everything has been rushed and now it's all falling apart. This show's staff are attempting to cash in on the success of The Walking Dead by surreptitiously transforming its own plot and performers into pathetic mimeographs of the already established ones of note. We were promised a show that would focus on the rise and fall of the undead and society and instead find ourselves in nearly the exact environment that The Walking Dead took literally years to establish only in a few weeks instead.

We have had eleven episodes of Fear the Walking Dead so far. How many main characters have we lost? My current total is 0.75 because Eliza was hardly there enough to count as a full character and Mrs. Salazar was ancillary at best. In the first eleven episodes of The Walking Dead we lost Ed Peletier, a slew of Atlanta Camp Survivors, Andrea's sister Amy, Jim, and Otis.

Would a main character death help or save Fear the Walking Dead? I can't say for sure but it would certainly help! I'd hate to see Strand, Madison, Daniel, or Nick go but as for the others? Chris and Ofelia are undeniably expendable, Alicia has at least been engrossed more in the plot, and Travis could go either way. In all that's eight characters that this show is dragging from one episode to the next! EIGHT!

You want eight from The Walking Dead?

Rick, Carl, Carol, Daryl, Michonne, Maggie, Glenn, and Sasha.

Pick any ONE of those and put them up against even the best that Fear the Walking Dead has to offer. There's just not enough substance in the latter to warrant an attachment like the former has engendered throughout its run.

Without some sort of emotional manipulation I feel like this show will squander what interest it has managed to sustain to this point. If the initial build up was supposed to be towards the very early days of the end then what the hell are we supposed to look forward to now? Some impossible reunion or crossover with characters from the main show? A happily-ever-after story by way of Baja? It's not a rhetorical question--I genuinely have no idea just what it is that we're supposed to care about.

I'm willing to stick it out through the end of this season but I have a bad feeling that this might be AMC's first dud for me--a premium channel version of Under the Dome that had the utmost promise but became ultimately nothing but sweet nothings whispered into our ears.

Why Pet Parenting Represents the Nadir of Modern American Civilization

Man and beast have enjoyed a mutually beneficial relationship for thousands of years. Our quadripedal companions have long looked to us for sustenance whilst providing us with companionship and security. It's an arrangement that's been pretty swank for the animals (mostly dogs due to their training efficiency and degree of affection) and certainly useful for us. Somehow, though, a seemingly trivial, minor distinction has been lost in the past ten or fifteen years--one that seeks to undermine the validity of this interaction and, dare I say, to degrade and devalue our own existences. At some indeterminable point in the past two decades, animals went from being pets to family members. This might not seem problematic to you but it scares the living shit out of me because, well...

...but pets aren't people.

We live in a society where everything has to have an additional level of value--unnecessary descriptors that serve the sole purpose of seemingly elevating our own overinflated egos; nothing is simple or sacred anymore. It used to be just an apple but then somehow it had to become an organic apple (or "AW-GAH-NIC" if you're from Staten Island). I get that distinction though, especially in light of the harsh hormones and caustic chemicals that are used in food growth. You want to know what's going into the food that's going into you and that's a good thing. What's not a good thing is the added layers of distinction that accompany damn near everything nowadays.

"Organic" no longer suffices; now it has to be "locally harvested," "hand-raised," "farm-to-table," or derivative of one of the myriad, asinine dietary subcultures like vegans and paleos. The coffee you're drinking is no longer simply light or dark roasted: it's coffee from fair-trade, Ethiopian/Sumatran/Himalayan, medium-bodied, saturnine roast, hand-picked, organic, ethnically sensitive and environmentally sustainable beans. Just the thought of reading a sign with all of that bullshit written on it is making me sick.

We are a society of self-promotion. I say society and not generation because it's not the up-and-coming youth of America who are furthering this egoistic agenda but rather the goddamn adults! Think about it: people between the ages of twenty and sixty are setting the example for the next generation who are already assholes by association. It's not limited to food and coffee but is endemic in damn near everything including two of my most ardent passions: music and craft beer. EVERYONE is a music critic in his or her mind nowadays and no one stops to question whether or not they are qualified to make the bombastic claims that they do or to explore the history of the genre they're lambasting. And don't get me started on the self-aggrandizing snobbery in craft beer; beer geeks are achingly wannabe elitists.

I could write tomes about all of the different groups of people that piss me off with their narcissistic, self-serving behavior but in the interest of keeping my own level of agita to an acceptable level, I'll focus on the folks who belong in the ninth circle of hell: pet parents. I'm amazed by the rush of anger and aggravation that just rippled through me when I typed that. These people are enough to make me want to drive off a cliff or take a chance on a SpaceX trip to points unknown.

I'm sure that what I'm about to say will piss off a lot of people and I'm okay with that because getting angry is the first step towards awakening; actually feeling something real like that is akin to being detached from the Matrix and marks the beginning of a new life in some ways. Raw emotion is shunned in present-day America in favor of the endless self-esteem masturbation that you people engage in on a daily basis; therein lies the bigger issue that I hope to tackle by the end of this lengthy diatribe.

Everything has a surfeit of superfluous nomenclature nowadays and yet there is an alarming dearth of value and meaning in these tag lines. It's painfully obvious to me that most of these descriptors exist for precisely two reasons: to make us feel like we are better than we are and to give the appearance to others that we are better than them. It terrifies me that that's really all it comes down to and yet, to me, it seems like an insurmountable obstacle to getting people to extract their heads from their asses.

We have become a people incapable of actually feeling anything because our capacities for emotion and
criticism have shriveled like an old man's prostate; we're tumbling down Maslow's pyramid at an accelerating rate and no one seems to notice or to care. People are engaged in a never-ending pursuit of praise through self-promotion, chasing the meaningless adulation from the masses that has somehow become the American lifeblood. It's funny and sad how often I hear people complaining about the fact that every kid gets a trophy just for participating (I refuse to employ the word "competing" because there is no competition involved in those attaboy/attagirl eliciting activities; competition belies a winner and a slew of losers in his or her wake, which is patently impossible when everyone walks away with an award) and yet no one seems to realize that they're engaging in the same type of behavior in their everyday lives!

The difference is superficial but achingly telling: people post things on social media to obtain likes. Likes, for crying out loud! Jesus, it's right there in front of you goddamn lemmings and none of you are willing to pull your dead, vacant gazes away from your screens to notice. You live your lives sucking at the teat of empty, insipid praise under the guise of happiness and self-fulfillment without once questioning the purpose of what you're doing or the actual retail price of the emotional satisfaction that you think you're deriving from these endeavors. Every act of self-aggrandizing is a vacuous attempt at feeling special and important in a world where less and less matters simply because you oafs have stopped paying attention to what has any actual worth. You're all oblivious to the vampiric nature of social media and the way each and every post, poke, and like sucks a little bit more of your soul and self-worth away from you, turning it into garmonbozia for the puppeteers who keep feeding you the same meaningless bullshit you all just keep lapping up like warm milk.

Everything has an extreme end to it and, to me, pet parents are the worst of the worst when it comes to the aforementioned praise-seeking bullshit. I cannot tell you how viciously I disdain these people but I can tell you why I loathe them with such vociferous ferocity: they are knowingly perpetuating the farce I outlined above and are intentionally seeking your attention. It's akin to the brightly colored advertisement on the road that says, "You just read this sign." There's no value in that act--no accomplishment to be had because it caters to our basest reflexive actions. It's akin to Kevin Durant swatting this kid's shot. Sure it counts as a block on KD's stat sheet but did he really achieve anything?

What I'm getting at is the people who shove their pet ownership in your face usually by way of bumper stickers, car magnets, and t-shirts, saying nothing of the bullshit that occurs online. Nothing infuriates me more than seeing a "Who Rescued Who?" magnet on the back of the car in front of me; it takes every ounce of willpower I have not to slam a dull, heavy object repeatedly against both vehicle and operator in those moments. This bothers me on multiple levels (the least of which is grammatically--it should be "Who Rescued Whom" but no one gives a shit about grammer or speling nemore so y should i,) and it really embodies the sentiments that represent the culture we live in.

First, here's an actual quotation I found online about that magnet:

"I really admire the bumper stickers with a paw print that states: “Who Rescued Who?” It’s so cute and powerful and to the point."

This single couplet sums up everything that is twisted and wrong about you fuckers mostly because of the sheer number of you who probably agree with him or her. I'm going to use that quotation as a jumping point for the dressing down to come.

First of all, what the fuck is admirable about that self-serving slurp-fest? I admire hard-working folks who toil away at thankless jobs to provide for their families without ever complaining. I admire people who give freely of their time to help others without ever asking for anything in return. I admire those who struggle and fail but who pick themselves back up and remain determined to achieve their goals.

You people admire others who are so emotionally empty that they seek to sate themselves with vapid, inane self-indulgence.

Trust me: there's nothing powerful about that crap. And just what in the holy hell is the point? The common answer would likely be some insipid shit like, "I was lost but Bowser (or whatever other yuppy puppy, hippy dippy, bilbo baggins bullshit name people give their pets) saved me."

Seriously--stop for a second and think about that. Let that marinate in your cranial juices for a moment. The implication is that the pet owner was emotionally lacking in his or her life and that the presence of this animal somehow saved them from that aching loneliness. Sounds innocuous enough on paper until you look back at the original statement:

"Who Rescued Who."

This is where my vitriolic fury really begins to heat up. Why can't it just be a pet like it's been for literally thousands of years? Why does it need the distinction that it's a "rescue"? And why do you have to point out your role in the transaction? (I'll answer that question in a moment--I'm on a roll so I can't stop now!)

As a literal person, I'm offended on a deeply cognitive level by the whole notion of "rescuers." Notice that I didn't say rescues and that there are quotation marks around the word I did elect to use. I can get behind the idea of rescue animals and I genuinely admire (!) the folks who elect to adopt those animals over others...to a degree. I'll type this next sentence v e r y  s l o w l y  s o   y  o  u    c  a  n    u  n  d  e  r  s  t  a  n  d    i  t:

YOU did not rescue that animal.

Phew! I can't believe how much relief that just gave me. It was so much fun I think I'll try it again!

YOU did NOT rescue that animal.

One more time for posterity!

YOU DID NOT RESCUE THAT ANIMAL!

There! I said it. (And I seriously derived a sick amount of pleasure from that.) My biggest gripe with the whole rescue thing is the fact that it is devoid of logic (or, more importantly, why it is purposely devoid of logic). That animal was actually rescued by someone other than you therefore it is physically impossible for you to be the rescuer! You're making false claims and operating under an assumed identity, which is probably illegal but most certainly should be. Shame on you for the farce!

Let's cut the bullshit out for a minute and have some real talk, shall we? Let's call it exactly what it is and then explain why this distinction is crucial and egregiously, intentionally overlooked. Unless you personally rescued an animal from a dire, life-threatening circumstance, you, yourself are not a rescuer. The fact that that animal might be put down if it wasn't adopted before a given termination date does not make you a rescuer--it makes you a pet owner. The person who emancipated the animal prior to adoption is the sole rescuer; you simply moved it from its present safe-haven into your own home. And what does that make that act?

A transaction.

Back in the day, you went to a pet store and you bought a pet. How we managed to fuck up something as simple as an exchange of cash for a product is beyond me but it has undeniably become drenched in the pathetic deluge of profligate self-gratification. Again, I respect the choice to purchase an animal that might be overlooked by most folks because, let's face it, everyone loves puppies and kittens. There also are people who genuinely elect to adopt these animals solely because they recognize that a) there's a good chance no one else will and b) that animal will subsequently be put to death.

Funny, though, that the same people who have no problem snagging the unwanted, one-eyed mongrel with a gimpy leg won't touch that bruised peach or dour-looking lettuce in the produce aisle. There's a specific reason why that's true though: there's no social currency to be gained by the latter but rather a perceived amount through the former. Think about it: no one ever boasts about buying food that's near or past "expiration" (another fallacy for another rant) and yet EVERYONE who has obtained a rescue animal vocalizes that act in one way or another; the reason for that is the crux of this entire diatribe and sits at the core of what is slowly sucking out all of our souls.

Residents of the year 2015 have an innate, insatiable need for recognition by their peers. It makes me think of Lisa Simpson during the school strike when she freaks out and screams, "Grade me...look at me...evaluate and rank me!" People are so pathetically unfulfilled that they seek the most minute modicums of approval from others and interpret that as being somehow valuable. Their lives are so empty that they have to bolster every single act that they perform by adding purported layers of meaning just to feel like they're actually doing something worthwhile and good. The problem though is that what is gained in esteem from these things is so minuscule it's almost non-existent (thus the Kevin Durant video--sure he blocked a shot but there was no challenge--no chance of failure in what he did thus stripping the act of any true meaning).

Many if not most pet owners are not content simply with having an animal companion to take care of. Instead, they flaunt the animal's past as if it were their own thereby elevating themselves, enhancing their perceived self-worth in their warped, twisted minds while simultaneously degrading and devaluing the rest of us. They believe, genuinely, that they have done something noble--courageous even!--by adopting these animals. They go so far as to refer to the animals as their children and themselves as the pets' parents...

...and that's where I draw the line.

There is a very real, necessary caveat that I have to throw out there before I press onward. I recognize and respect the fact that some couples experience difficulty in conceiving a child. For some, it's a physiological issue while for others it's simply shitty luck. Regardless, not being able to achieve something that you desperately want to while many others who are far less worthy seem awash in good fortune is a gutting thing to go through. My children represent the source of the richest happiness I enjoy in my life and it makes me ache to think of others who go through life wanting to produce offspring but for whatever reason are not able to. THESE people have a very real void that they often fill with something else--travel, hobbies, or, occasionally, pets. I can understand them treating their pets like children because, psychologically, they are balancing out their emotional needs--plugging the hole in their hearts and providing themselves with an avenue for the affection they've always had but were otherwise incapable of bestowing upon progeny.

The same could be said for couples who actually had children but who lost one or more. That must be even more emotionally excoriating and I can't even begin to fathom that pain. Nothing can ever replace that child or fill the emotional void left in its place and, if it was an only child, it might simply be too painful to have another one. That's when the empty nursery gets turned into a home office or a craft area and the perfect opportunity to adopt a pet.

The notion of pet parents--these pitiful perpetrators of vainglorious acts of mass asininity--is beyond reproach in any other case. The scariest, saddest part though is that many of these people actually have children. That's the most addling aspect to me--the fact that that filial void doesn't exist for these people and yet they still feel the need to self-aggrandize. Then again, that just speaks to the zeitgeist of social media--the emotional sweet that is slowly rotting our souls leaving behind an aching cavity some crumbs in our facial hair.

It's become anathema simply to be a pet owner; what once was the norm is now an atavistic endeavor shunned by the masses in favor of something a little glossier. People nowadays say shit like, "my pets are my children" without ever considering the lunacy of their ludicrous proclamations. No, actually, they are not your children. Biologically speaking, do they share your D.N.A.? Did they spend time in your womb?

"Well, adopted children are still children and they don't fit those criteria," you might say and you would be right. But the difference is that those adopted human children count as dependents on your taxes, must engage in some sort of compulsory education, and, most importantly, they will someday (potentially) join society by gaining employment, moving out, and beginning their own families.

You're so hellbent on proving that your pets are your children? Fine. Let them tend to your needs when you're an invalid.

The one overarching reason why pets can never be your children is this: you can walk into any pet store and buy a replacement if yours gets flattened by a moving van or dies of old age at fifteen. All it takes is cash or credit to have your very own Snowball II or Santa's Little Helper the Second.

The saddest part of all of this is that there are many, many children who would benefit from adoption. These kids would enjoy a very real rescuing from the foster-care system and would provide far more emotional fulfillment than a pet; the problem is that they require more out of you in every way possible. And isn't that the central issue in all of this? People don't want to be challenged anymore: they want the most amount of reward for the least amount of effort and commitment. No one wants to earn anything and in-so-doing they are losing everything there is to be gained through the process; they want the physique without the aching muscles.

People will take whatever ego stroking they can get whether it's Facebook likes or nods of approval and adulation for their saccharine car magnets. They would rather portray themselves as valiant heroes and heroines worthy of your praise for essentially buying an animal. It makes me sick and it leaves me wondering what the hell is next in this cesspool of absurdity--our throwaway culture that overvalues the most evanescent moments of panegyrical praise while turning a blind eye to the ugly emptiness in their own hearts and the fact that they simply aren't as important as they've been made to feel.

It's only a matter of time before adopted children start being referred to as rescues; by then, will we all be beyond saving?

Band Evolution Versus A Complete Departure In Sound

I've heard some people say that you should never listen to a band beyond their third album.  Fortunately, I rarely follow absolutes and have seen many instances of bands hitting their stride later in their careers.  Many if not most modern bands wind up being one hit wonders with either a smash hit single or, if they're lucky, an album rife with solid material; it is when they release their sophomore efforts that they begin to fade slowly into the ether (The Calling and Crossfade are two great examples).  Some manage to repeat their success and have either a remunerative followup or simply sustained support with a string of solid singles later on (The Wallflowers, Goo Goo Dolls, and Vertical Horizon).  Fewer, of course, are those who write an unforgettable album--one that assures them a spot in music history--but who fail to find that magic a second time (Nine Inch Nails' "The Downward Spiral" is one of the most amazing albums ever written but, despite Trent Reznor's musical brilliance, he's failed to write anything remotely comparable to that opus).  Fewest are the bands who craft not simply a great album but a legendary one and who go on to duplicate that fame and fortune later in their careers.

Bands who manage to create a sustainable writing career often do so with a particular sound--something that they are recognized for instantly and that serves to define them.  They become the best at what they do, which ultimately proves to be a double-edged sword: they grow to be inextricably linked with a particular genre and set themselves up for failure should they try to break free of those classifications.  Some manage to find success by working within the confines of their genre but many others struggle to break free, often to their own detriment.

There are numerous instances of bands with an identifiable sound resorting to a formulaic approach.  To an extent, every album sounds the same and there is little evidence of the band pushing musical boundaries.  Nickelback is arguably the best example of this approach.  It's not unreasonable to declare that every Nickelback album sounds the same because, essentially, they all do.  There are a few heavier tracks, the requisite (see: money making) ballads, an oddball acoustic track here or there, and a slew of filler.  Of course, the Nickelback sound is not limited to the actual music but the lyrics as well.  Nearly every song is about sex or is sexualized to some degree and few if any have any remotely memorable quality to them.  That is not to say that the songs and their words are not catchy just that there is nothing redeemable about them.  On the contrary, it's Nickelback's infectious sound that has generated the insane level of success that they have enjoyed over the past decade.

At the opposite end of the spectrum are bands who suffer from musical A.D.D..  Their sound is mercurial at best, shifting constantly either from one song or one album to the next.  Weezer is emblematic of this approach but in their case it works to their advantage; Rivers Cuomo's inability to sit still, musically, is part of what Weezer fans love about the music.  The problem with this approach, consequently, is that there is no rhyme or reason to the albums and thus no stability.  Fans of these bands rarely if ever know what they are going to get and many often lose patience and interest in the long run.

Arguably the most successful and interesting bands are those who will dabble within the parameters of a particular style, branch off to something different but still related, and ultimately make a return to the sound that made them famous, putting a new spin on it that only years of experience and experimentation can provide.  The first band that jumps to mind that fits this description is Metallica.  The metal mogul's first few albums were quintessential thrash, even following a particular formula (e.g. the mega-hit, the Em based song, and the instrumental track).  There was an evolution of sorts towards a cleaner, more listener-friendly sound that culminated with The Black Album.  From there, though, things got a little bumpy with the release of Load, ReLoad, and then St. Anger.  These three albums serve as the experimental members of the Metallica canon, causing derision and division among longtime fans of the band.  A return to form with Death Magnetic gave the sleeping giant new life as the much anticipated followup album looms in the distance.

Part of what rubbed people raw about the aforementioned Load and ReLoad is the fact that both seemed like a huge departure from the sound that made Metallica famous.  As a music fan and musician myself, I find this point highly salient and love contemplating the question that it engenders: when does a band's evolution become a complete departure in sound?  For me, I would say that the answer lies in the motivation behind the change and in the execution.  Many rock bands are releasing albums that are heavily influenced by electronic sounds and are incorporating elements of styles like Dubstep.  Again, for me, this seems more like a pathetic effort to stay relevant and to cash in on a current trend rather than a form of evolution for the band.  That's not to say that there aren't instances of brilliance but rather that most do not seem to jive with the band's identity to that point.

Evolution, of course, is a slippery slope when it comes to music.  I cannot say with any degree of certainty where evolution ends and experimentation begins; it is something that needs to be determined by the individual listener.  I find bands like Incubus and Linkin Park to be excellent examples of evolution gone awry.  With regards to the former, most fans who encountered Incubus with their album S.C.I.E.N.C.E. have hated everything since because of how different the sound is.  Ordinarily, that would represent less of an evolution and more of the aforementioned departure but in this case I think it's a little more nuanced than that.  Incubus was heavily influenced by the Red Hot Chili Peppers and, having gained confidence in themselves from the commercial viability of S.C.I.E.N.C.E., they wanted to establish themselves in their own right rather than being labeled an R.H.C.P. ripoff. 

What followed were four of my favorite albums and the core of the Incubus canon.  Make Yourself was phenomenal and is an album that demonstrates extensive musicianship despite being written off as another piece of nu-metal garbage.  Morning View, the followup to Make Yourself, is one of if not the greatest album I've ever heard and is a clear evolution from its predecessor.  A Crow Left of the Murder and Light Grenades, in turn, are easily linkable to the other two albums despite showing considerable changes in sound.  There are fewer heavier tracks on the later albums but the complexity of the arrangements improved to an impressive degree. 

I absolutely abhor the latest album but many feel like it is yet another step forward.  I felt like the lyrics were insipid and that the music was uninspired.  To me, the heavy aspect of the music is part of what made Incubus great and to see it replaced with mellower, almost muzakian elements saddens me.  Still, as I see it, the band made one left turn after S.C.I.E.N.C.E. and has followed a relatively straight path since then without playing it too safe.

As someone whose introduction to Incubus came after S.C.I.E.N.C.E., I have an easier time appreciating all of the albums than someone who began with it.  An extremely latecomer to the world of Slipknot (I first became familiar with them in 2012), I have a similar appreciation for their body of work and can see a clear progression from their inimitable self-titled debut and their most recent effort.  Fans of the Slipknot and Iowa albums, though, often hold Vol. 3 and All Hope in Gone in disdain because of a lack of edge and aggression.  I see them both as being the pinnacle of their musicianship despite the aforementioned beginning efforts serving as their defining works.  So perhaps when you encounter a band might also influence the conclusion of evolution versus exploitation.

I can think of no better example of that exploitation argument than Linkin Park.  I was a huge LP fan when they came out and was with them right up until A Thousand Suns came out.  The first two albums were amazing and incredibly similar.  Not wanting to be pigeonholed as a rap rock band, Linkin Park then shifted towards a more mainstream rock sound with Minutes to Midnight.  For me, the focus on the musical instruments and the move away from the rap-centric tracks represented an evolution; the guys seemed to have grown as musicians.  The problem came with the fourth album, A Thousand Suns.

Experimental at best, A Thousand Suns took a long time to grow on me.  I can now appreciate it as an excellent album in its own right but I have a difficult time accepting it as part of the Linkin Park canon.  It sounds like nothing else that they've done and it just doesn't seem to fit among the collective of their work.  Thus the problem with that complete departure in sound.  See, I feel like an album like A Thousand Suns would fit in the canon if it was portrayed as being an intentional experiment--an album in its own right but one that was meant to serve as a pet project for the members rather than the next link on the album chain.  I can see a sort of bond between their most recent release, Living Things, and the first three albums but still do not feel like there is any relationship with A Thousand Suns. 

The band risks further alienating its fan base--one that is clamoring for a return to form of sorts--with its next release.  To date, Linkin Park has released two rap rock albums, one rock album, one ethereal experimental album, and one electronic album.  There is little relationship between the later works and the earlier ones and, frankly, it feels like the band is losing sight of who and what they really are.  That's the danger with too much experimentation within the brand of the band.

When a band is known for a very particular sound it can become extremely difficult to produce something new that doesn't sound stale and contrived.  Green Day became legends with the release of Dookie in the early '90s.  The problem for them was that they tried to stick to the pop punk formula without ever really hitting it big within the genre.  It wasn't until they released arguably their most prolific hit, "Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)" that the opportunity for evolution presented itself.  Suddenly, this high-energy punk band was known worldwide because of an acoustic guitar-based track (much like Plain White Ts with "Hey There Delilah" of recent fame).  They tried the Dookie formula one more time before drafting their magnum opus, American Idiot, in 2004.

Touching upon my initial point, that's precisely why you cannot give up on a band you love, even when it seems like all hope is lost.  Their legendary status solidifying album was their third but their best work to date didn't come until their seventh record.  And how did they follow that up?  With one of the most ingenious moves in music history: they released an even more different-sounding album under a fake name.  This deflected the insane level of expectation that American Idiot generated and allowed the band to write another phenomenal album (though one that I admittedly dislike).  Rocking the boat one more time, they followed THAT up with three record releases in a single year.  Granted, none of the triad was particularly good but it shows that the band is not content to rest on their laurels.

And then there are the Foo Fighters.  Easily my favorite band of all time, the Foos are fronted by one of the most brilliant musical minds we've ever seen.  How do you follow the demise of one of the most beloved, successful bands of all-time?  You go out and do your own thing.  The honesty of the first Foo Fighters album showed that Dave Grohl was not content to cash in on the fame of his previous band but was intent instead on blazing a new trail for himself.

Here's the great thing about the Foo Fighters: they have an instantly identifiable sound but one that is not easy to define.  I can hear a single note and know that it's from a Foo Fighters album and, in some cases, if it's a b-side, know which album it was connected to.  The band's sophomore album featured numerous tracks of which any single one could have made their career and was followed up by two more excellent albums.  The danger at that point though was releasing another record like numbers three or four.  Instead, what followed was the best example of musical evolution I've ever encountered.

After penning There Is Nothing Left To Lose and its mega hit "Times Like These," Dave Grohl decided to flex his musical muscles and to demonstrate both his and his band members' instrumental prowess.  The band released In Your Honor, a gargantuan album almost unrivaled in its scope.  One disc was electric-based, heavy, uptempo rock while the second featured stripped down, sparer acoustic tracks, exclusively.  The collective serves to define who the Foo Fighters are with each disc standing alone as its own incredible album.

On the heels of In Your Honor came Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace--a sleek, slick studio effort that produced some of the band's most popular songs.  Not content to craft another polished record despite its success, Dave Grohl and company then went to work on the quintessential, career-defining album Wasting Light.  Recorded analog instead of digitally, in a garage instead of a multimillion dollar studio, this album stands as the band's crowning achievement.  Heavy, soft, complex, catchy, it has all of the elements of the perfect album...and the scary part is, when the Foos finally lay down their instruments for good, it might not even prove to be their best.

And that's just it.  You can never count a band out no matter what changes they make if it's a part of their evolution.  The ones who try to ride on the coattails of current trends will ultimately fail if that's the only thing that they do; it's those who draw from those experiences in an effort to sharpen their definition further that will ultimately succeed.  The best bands, then, have an easily identifiable sound--one that varies but never completely changes as they move forward through their careers--and an insatiable desire to push themselves to new musical heights without selling out to the lowest popular denominator.  They release extremely different music as EPs or side projects without tainting their legacy.  And, ultimately, they find their way back to who they are if ever they lose sight along the way.


Linkin Park, Foo Fighters, Green Day, Incubus, Slipknot

The Story Of Echo

Echo at the Manitoba Welcome Center up the road
from the Canadian border

One of my favorite experiences as a kid was going on road trips with my parents; few things excited me as much as the prospect of seeing a new state welcome sign.  Part of it was the fact that visiting a new state felt akin to stepping foot on foreign soil--embarking upon a journey to a new world.  I mean, to a seven year old, Virginia or Maine might as well be halfway around the globe!

Through my adolescence, I often dreamed about the trips that I would go on when the freedom of adulthood would finally wrest me from the bondage of high school.  The cross country road trip always held a special allure, reaching Colorado in particular partially because it was something my father had done before I was born.  There was just something invigorating about the idea of having nothing but open road ahead of and behind me while I cruised towards whatever destination lie in wait.

Sometimes, the realization of our dreams leaves us wanting--aching for the expectant anticipation rather than the underwhelming realities we experience as adults.  In a few rare instances though the actuality of that attainment far surpasses anything we could have dared to imagine.  Looking back on all of the journeys that I have been blessed to have undertaken, I can only smile and be thankful that the latter proved to be the case time and time again.  Each of those trips had its own identity and none would have been the same without the woman sitting across from me and the car that we drove in.


This is the story of our 2001 Toyota Echo.

At first glance, she might not seem like much.  An atypical shade of blue (supposedly "sea foam blue," which, to this day I argue makes no sense whatsoever!  I've always heard sea foam green but, apparently Google agrees with the paint namers since there are more results for sea foam blue than green.  Whatever!), the Echo served for years as the stalwart sentry of the entry level economy market for Toyota.  Thusly priced, named, and colored, it would prove to be the ideal car for my wife as she graduated from high school.

I can still remember hearing people talk about Heather zipping along in "that little blue car of hers" early in our relationship.  Separated by the Verrazano Bridge, we spent a fair amount of time traveling between Staten Island and Brooklyn in Heather's first and only car.  It was the site of long talks and daydreaming sessions, of late night, after-movie snacks, and of course the requisite amount of making out.

During those early years, Heather and I would often go driving aimlessly around at night, happy just to be spending time together and to be away from our respective situations.  It reminded me of nights spent in "the van" with my best friends towards the end of high school.  Though that was a brotherhood in its own right, there was undoubtedly a relationship of sorts being fostered between Heather, her car, and me.  Then in my early twenties, I once more enjoyed the thrill of exploration as I learned the lay of the land in Staten Island, sharing in Heather's history when we visited certain places and forging our own as we encountered things neither of us had ever seen before (like the lighthouse and the South Pole on Staten Island).

One day during a petty argument, I took out the Starburst that I had been chewing and placed it on the outside of the windshield while Heather was driving.  I don't remember the exact context of the moment but I will never forget the vehemence in Heather's demand that I take it off and the obvious hurt that I had caused her by essentially defacing a part of her.  Until that point, I hadn't realized just how much her Toyota Echo had meant to her and it was only then that I began thinking of how integral a role the car was beginning to play in our lives.  I had gone to visit Heather a handful of times in Staten Island but anytime she came to Brooklyn, either to pick me up or to drop me off, it was in that car.  In a sense, it was what literally and figuratively brought us closer together.

It wasn't until 2005 that my relationship with Echo began.  As graduation loomed on the horizon, Heather and I discussed a number of trips that we wanted to take together in the future.  Ultimately, we decided that since I had never been to Florida before and that she loved Disney World as much as she did, that we would head down there following our commencement from Baruch.  Now, though I had taken driver's ed in high school and spent some time practicing with my Dad, I ultimately never went for my license. With the road trip of my dreams dancing tantalizingly close, I decided that I would freshen up my driving skills and go for my license so that I could partake in the driving.  To that point, Heather had done nearly all if not all of the driving for us including a day trip (!) to Niagara Falls that took nearly 22 hours round trip.

Though I learned the mechanics of driving from both my coursework in school and from my Dad, it was through my experience with Echo that I really learned how to be comfortable in the driver's seat.  I brushed up on all of the technical aspects while learning the nuances during the dozens of hours I spent practicing with Heather.  I had already learned how to drive but my then-future wife had taught me how to drive.  I made it through the tollbooths at the Verrazano, drove for the first time on the highway, and laid the seeds of all the future miles ahead of me under Heather's tutelage with Echo's pedals beneath my feet.

If you're reading this wondering why I'm spending all this time on explication then it's probably worth taking an extra moment or two for something more direct.  Heather and I have gotten all kinds of comments from people throughout the years about our car and, no matter what's been said, we each just silently shake our heads because it's obvious that people just don't understand.  I've been asked how I can possibly be comfortable in "that little thing," we've both been asked about how many miles she has on her, followed by a shake of the head and an "isn't it time to upgrade?"  We've been ragged on for the no-frills design--mocked for the lack of power windows and power locks.  Echo's even been referred to as a "clown car."

The thing that people fail to understand though--and the overarching point of this entry--is that neither Heather nor I consider Echo just a car; she's a part of our family.  I've mentioned this from time to time to people and have been met with polite eye rolls or hostile laughter--something that never fails to amuse me in this era of pet parents and rescues.  If a pet can be considered a family member then why not a car?  If home is where the heart is and our Echo takes us wherever our hearts desire, then how can she not be considered home?  Hell!  With all of the time we've spent traveling in her, she basically is a home of sorts.

To me, Echo's the type of car from a bygone era--a time when cars were given names and had personalities.  No, I'm not referring to those ridiculous eyelashes that you see on cars or the myriad decorative stickers, ribbons, and decals that adorn vehicles these days.  I'm talking instead about the days when a first car mattered--when it offered the opportunity to build a personal history with its driver(s).  Momentous events that occurred in the lives of these owners were made all the more special because of the involvement of that car.

See--that's it.  It's the history that we share with this car that makes it so cherished.  That Toyota Echo took me and Heather on our first date to Chevy's at the Staten Island Mall; she's driven us on every single road trip that we've embarked upon within continental North America (the only three drives we've gone on without her were in Hawai'i on our honeymoon, from San Francisco to Carson City (also during our honeymoon), and throughout Puerto Rico during our trip a few months later); she was present for every one of our amazing Adirondack adventures with Dick Doux and the crew up north--all seven trips into the mountains during the heart of winter; she helped both Heather and I move out of the houses that we had spent our respective childhoods growing up in and then again helped to move our growing family into our first home.  It was within Echo's friendly confines that Heather and I had the discussion that helped us to realize that we could get engaged after all and it was Echo's front passenger seat that held the ring on my way home from the jeweler, rife with a torrent of excited emotion.  She drove us home from our wedding reception and twice to the hospital for the deliveries of our children.  We brought each of our children home from North Shore LIJ in Echo--one to Staten Island and one to Hazlet.  She was there when we dropped off our son for his first day of school and when we picked him up later that morning.

Sure plenty of people experience those things...but to be able to do them all with the same vehicle?  To me, that's priceless.

But that's the serious stuff!  My personal relationship with Echo has been forged through long, long hours spent driving along the highways of the United States and Canada.  I've listened to countless minutes of music and passed innumerable mile markers as the macadam moved beneath our feet and enjoyed a nearly equal amount of conversation with Heather on our trips.  I mean, people know that we've traveled a lot but I'm not sure that they're quite aware of the extent of our journeying.  Here's just a sampling of the experiences that we've had with our Echo or the things that she could knock off of her bucket list were she to have one:

Echo has driven us to 19 of the 21 Major League Baseball parks that we've been to.

She's been across the U.S. Rocky Mountains three times and the Canadian Rockies twice.

She's been to the Everglades and the Bayou, the Nevada desert and the Colorado mountains including up and down a 14,000 foot mountain during which we lost the brakes (Mt. Evans), up a volcano (Mt. St. Helens), and over the Mississippi River four times.

She's driven through a blizzard with complete white out conditions, a hurricane, impenetrable fog, and complete and utter darkness in Arizona, she's hit tumbleweeds while thunderstorms rolled in across the vast valleys of the southwestern United States, and she's had the red dust of Wyoming on her tires.

She's been to all 48 contiguous states and 42 state capitols.

She's been to the Jack Daniel's distillery twice, Central High School and a yard sale in Arkansas, Disney World, a Pony Express station, and more than a half dozen lighthouses including those at Montauk, New York and Ponce Inlet, Florida.

She's driven up a magnetic hill in Moncton and over the world's longest covered bridge in Hartland, New Brunswick.

She's driven through Times Square on a Friday night in the summer, to the September 11th memorial lights a few days after they first blazed towards the heavens, to Boston on Patriot's Day, and in Indianapolis during the Indy 500.

She's driven on both an official NASCAR track in Watkins Glen, New York and on the very beach where auto racing was born in Daytona Beach, Florida.  She even dipped her tires into the Atlantic Ocean while on said beach!

We've driven to places that many people have flown to like Seattle, Washington and Las Vegas, Nevada...

...as well as a few places that we've all heard of but few people I know have gone to...

She's been as far southeast as Key West, Florida, as far northeast as Halifax, Nova Scotia, as far west as Fullerton, California, and as far northwest as Fort Nelson, British Columbia.

She's seen Mile 0 on Route 1 in Key West

Route 66

Four Corners State Park

And, most impressively of all, the first 250 miles of the Alaska Highway including Mile 0 in Dawson Creek, British Columbia!

She's driven on 46 of the 66 official Interstates in the continental United States:

I-4
I-5
I-10
I-12
I-15
I-20
I-24
I-25
I-29
I-35
I-40   
I-44
I-49
I-55
I-57
I-64
I-65
I-66
I-69
I-70
I-71
I-72
I-75
I-76
I-77
I-78
I-79
I-80
I-81
I-83
I-84* (separate highway in a distant state)
I-84
I-85
I-86* (separate highway in a distant state) 
I-86
I-87
I-88
I-89
I-90
I-91
I-93
I-94
I-95
I-96
I-97
I-99

She's also seen her fair share of adversity on the road having been involved in one collision in Brooklyn and a hit-and-run at the Staten Island Ferry parking lot.  She got stuck in the sand in Daytona when the local roads' commission decided to open up a stretch of beach previously reserved only for AWD vehicles.  She had a 70 mph encounter with a runaway construction barrel in Tennessee.  And, most notably, she survived driving through a mudslide on the Alaska Highway.

So from Route 1 to Route 66--the Trans-Canadian Highway to the Alaska Highway, we've covered A LOT of ground in our Echo.  Not counting the scores of mini-road trips that we've gone on throughout the years, Echo has endured a full dozen trips of 1,000 miles or more including SIX of 3,000 miles or more and, of those, THREE were 4,000 miles or more with TWO eclipsing 6,600 miles apiece.  Our longest took us through fifteen U.S. states and four Canadian provinces, covering over 8,500 MILES in a mere FOURTEEN DAYS!  When we finally made it home, I took this shot of our trip odometer:

8,583.6 miles--the LONGEST single trip we've ever done!

That's a total of more than 36,183.6 miles of road tripping completed in only 69 days of driving (a few trips had built in lounging days that had minimal driving to no driving involved so that total reflects the number of days where the majority of the time was spent driving).  That means that over the course of those dozen trips we averaged over 524 miles per day or approximately 9-plus hours of driving a day, every day.  Amazing that there was nary a stretch that felt that long!


We recently completed our first long road trip with our daughter Sarah.  It was Timmy's third such trip but also his longest as well.  I'm sure if we would have discussed our intentions with people they would have scoffed at us and declared that it couldn't be done.  "There's no WAY you're going to fit all of that stuff into that tiny car!"  Well, not only did we manage to survive two seventeen hour-plus days of driving (the first and last days of the trek), we also were able to fit the strollers, luggage, souvenirs from Downtown Disney, other souvenirs, and almost two cases' worth of beer for ourselves and our friends back home.  Comfortably, I might add.

Still, though, successful as our trip had been, I had and continue to have the sense that it might very well be our last long one with Echo.  Despite our ability to make things worth with the spacial restraints we face with her, it is undeniable that our family is growing and will likely someday outgrow what she can offer.  We're already eying a larger vehicle that will likely be purchased next year or the year after.  When that time comes to pass, it will make all of the past experiences with Echo all the more special.  Despite the suggestions we've been given about trading her in, I have absolutely no intention to do anything other than put Echo on a pedestal when her driving days are done.  We wouldn't trade her in or put her down any more than any of you would do the same with your respective pets/family members.

Her place in our family has been solidified through years of service--long miles up mountains and through deserts, across two countries and back again.  Revisiting my earlier maxim that home is where the heart is, I made one important request when I surprised Heather with a customized ornament after we moved in to our first home last year.  The ornament was meant to be a miniature representation of the first space that we could truly call our own.  Thankfully the artist honored my request as you can see from the picture below.