The Best Nirvana Song Ever

Yesterday was my Dad's birthday, so I'm writing about "Aneurysm," my favorite Nirvana song. Most people would never equate their father's birthday with a fairly obscure song by a now-fairly obscure, once-monumental, without-equal punk/rock three-piece. But I do.

When I was still too young to appreciate an unknown song by a band I didn't know I would soon worship before obtaining my driver's license, I was just another ten-year-old that only liked whatever his Dad liked, which was Van Halen. Back then, it seemed like my father had a lot of free time, at least as much as I did, and he would spend most of this time watching footage of (almost) every Van Halen concert ever performed.

My father loved Van Halen so fervently (and still does) that I can say with 99.9 percent certainty that theirs was the first piece of music I had ever heard in my life. I can't imagine my father not playing "Unchained" for me, his first-born son, within the first twenty-four hours of my existence. These things are just what fathers do when their children are born.

By now you're probably asking yourself what this has to do with Nirvana, and it is this: my father loved rock music, and he instilled this Love of Rock in me, almost immediately upon my birth. Most of my early childhood memories involved consuming rock music with my father either (a) in front of a television, or (b) in the passenger seat of his car. It was in the (b) setting that I first heard Nirvana's "Aneurysm." I wouldn't love the song for at least another five years. At the time, its lyrics were my only memory.

I remember the lyrics because they were so cliché. "Come on over & do the twist," opens the first verse after my favorite "gas-then-brake" song-openers of all time, a term I use to describe parts in a song that start small & quiet at first, then launch you into its maximum level of Rock, then simmer you down again like a sonic roller-coaster.

The empty meaning of the first line, and that it sounded like something the Chubby Checker would come up with, is what made it so memorable. Line Two, "Overdo it & have a fit," was interpreted childishly to be a reference to what happened in the song before the verse. Line Three, "I love you so much, it makes me sick," is still clever, regardless of how literally it described Kurt Cobain's love for Tobi Vail of Bikini Kill. Line Four just repeats Line One.

The second verse is same as the first, with the minor adjustment in Line Four, when Kurt sings, "Come on over & shoot the shit." For whatever reason, this got my Dad every time. He found this lyric patently hilarious. It might've had something to do with his upbringing in a small Tennessee town, but he's still entertained by it to this day. When I was ten and singing this lyric in the car with him as the song played, it was the only time I could say the word "shit" without any negative consequences, and being able to do that is memorable for all children.

I was fifteen and already an established fan when I realized how exemplary "Aneurysm" was to Nirvana's catalog. It is the best of everything they were, and probably the best of everything that was Rock & Roll in the 20th Century.

The melody and structure are impeccable. Bass, drums & guitar freak-noise count off the opening measure, then the most perfect arrangement of four chords ever conceived, with Dave Grohl hitting the cymbal one, two, three times at every other fill. It's what heroin must feel like (also referenced lyrically). Its verses are quiet, then loud, quintessentially derivative (and expertly reductive) of anything done by the Pixies, and the chorus (on the Incesticide studio version) employs a '60s-era echo ("Beat it, beat it") reminiscent of a time when women with shimmering bouffants did that sort of thing.

To top it off, the song's lyrical content combines into one idea the only two subjects rock music always glorifies: being in love & doing drugs.

I don't think I would have ever loved this song, or even this band, if it wasn't for that one afternoon in 1996, riding shotgun in my father's Honda Civic hatchback. For all of these reasons, "Aneurysm" will always be my favorite Nirvana song, and my father is the only person I have to thank for that.

The Case for Books

I should start by saying this debate has lost its freshness, that this post is overdue and that it will be long, but I believe that both sides should argue their points ferociously until a consensus is reached. Once this is finally achieved, we can all go back to living our lives.

Here's my position: Books are books. I don't want them to go away, and I don't think they should.

Here's why I bring it up: On Monday, Torie Bosch posted on Slate's Future Tense blog a criticism of comments made by author Jonathan Franzen about e-readers. In case you don't know, e-readers are electronic substitutes for books. Franzen's point was that e-readers are lame because they reduce literature (words in ink on paper) to a few bits of information on a plastic screen. In his opinion, words on paper feel "permanent," unlike words on a screen that could imply the potential for third-party tampering.

Seeming a little burned, Bosch responds that some serious readers prefer a device like the Kindle because of it's convenience when traveling. Franzen: 1, Bosch: 1.

Here's what I think: When I'm on a plane, carrying three books with me if I'm engrossed in three simultaneous plots doesn't seem like such a hassle. What seems like a hassle? Staring at a frozen, E-ink rendering of Joseph Conrad's face when my library of 100 e-books refuses to open for some inexplicable reason.

Franzen's isn't the most radical opinion I've heard. Tom Chivers of the Telegraph scoffs when he posits that Franzen fears "surreptitious" editing by e-publishers, and a few people scoffed a decade ago at the thought of reading a book on a computer.

Does Chivers forget that today burning books is still a common practice among certain people? In the near future they might find it more effective and covert to just gradually "edit" such troublesome texts over an inconspicuous length of time. Perhaps after the author dies and his copyright expires? If the current decline of the publishing industry is any indication, it's that anything is possible if there's a market.

Listen, I don't hate new technology. One top of doing for my book collection (a "library") what my iPod did for my music collection, I think e-readers are cool because they enable me to adjust their text to both my size and font preferences (something I also enjoy with a blog), and a good font totally has the power to improve my day, let alone my reading experience.

I don't hate new technology because I love my MacBook. If it didn't provide me reliable access to the internet, I wouldn't be able to watch shows that aren't provided by my television, get maps and up-to-date pictures of places I've never been to, or purchase four manual typewriters on eBay at below-market prices, laughing in the short-sighted faces of all those owners of mega-chain, brick-and-mortar typewriter retailers. Your days of riding the gravy train are over, assholes! Ha ha ha!

I don't hate new technology because my touchscreen Samsung phone is fucking awesome. I don't have to be near a computer to Tweet anymore, and that's fucking awesome. It has completely revolutionized the way I read news, and that's fucking awesome. It even has a "Books" application that allows me to read Alice in Wonderland and The Picture of Dorian Grey for free. Without it, I would have never known that reading books on my phone totally gives me a migraine.

Although I agree with Franzen's opinion about e-readers, I will admit that I don't agree that people who think differently should be disparaged with pompous lecturing. That being said, I have no patience for anyone of the opinion that books were a primitive shelf decoration from an unenlightened time when peoples' phones didn't cause car accidents or allow eighth-graders to send pictures of their genitals to each other.

Besides, both products have their own niches. E-readers are great for guilty-pleasure trash that no respectable person would ever want on their shelves or be seen enjoying in public: diet books, Letters to Penthouse, anything by Chelsea Handler or Bill O'Reilly. On the flip side, I can't think of anything more ridiculous than reading a book like Atlas Shrugged or Joyce's Ulysses on an electronic device. It's not like a 21st-Century gadget like the e-reader was invented because consumer attention spans have gotten longer.

But our economy doesn't really welcome the idealistic, "share-the-wealth" attitude that I do, so a company like Amazon will do everything in their power to destroy anyone who would even think of taking eyes (and business) away from them, no matter how negligible a fraction. It sucks and it's not fair. Blog about it.

This debate has probably been raging for an entire decade, but what's really frustrating is that it seems like we have the same number of answers & solutions to the myriad of questions & problems we had at the start, which is still "none." With the exception of now having to watch commercials on the Internet, the intersection of media and commerce still has a broken traffic light and everyone's movin' & shakin' when it seems the safest and most appropriate.

If I could make a prediction of what the future would look like based on the looks of the present it would be this: the book will never die. Ink & paper bound tightly inside a virtually indestructible cover is a commodity that is as elegant as it is undecorated; also, a book smells better than anything with a battery. 

For readers to cast aside books, and the love of their contents, for the disposable, inconsequential convenience of another God-forsaken machine seems to me both absurd and disloyal, but these times we're living in are pretty absurd and the cost of loyalty is only getting higher.

For me, this is how it works: when I read a book that I love, I want it on my shelf. I want enough of them on enough shelves to fill an entire room (called a "library"). In that place, whenever I want, I can reach up and pull one down. Feel it, see it, hold it, keep it forever. This copy. These words. I own them. They're mine.

That's my position. Happy Groundhog Day.

Sonnet III

The Wednesday portrait to my left-hand side,
Thin, humming lines whatever divining,
Spilling, combining, designing, signing;
Always returning; a comforting ride.

The scoring pearl-insignia section,
Gauche aroma, raw technological
Resin, down-born for pretty tragical.
Here's for having a decent selection.

Charge percent, all you "scalp'em, Brother" saints.
Clean stacking up like some Kentucky split;
Embarking without the factory hit.
Now you're here, always changing out the paints.

I think he says, "Her legs up in your eight,"
Before she comes, distort at any rate.

The Break-Up

When you take a minute to think of all the things you take for granted every day, you might find it takes more than a single minute to consider all of them. At night, nobody wonders as they're falling asleep whether or not the road they take to work will continue to exist in the morning. Or if the Starbucks that provides them their coffee will still exist. Or whether or not their parents will stop loving each other. Or whether or not the sun will burn out. These things are just assumed to continue existing. Sure as the sun, as sung by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, with utmost certainty.

You might be certain that the members of your favorite bands are best friends, having impossibly productive and stable relationships, stronger than your own parents because they're bonded by their art. One of those bands might be the most influential rock bands of the last thirty years. Two members of that band, who've been married for 27 years, could be considered the King and Queen of alternative music.

In October, Spin reported that Kim Gordon & Thurston Moore announced the break-up of their marriage since 1984. After learning this a week ago I have been emotionally stewing about the potential demise of one my favorite bands that is still performing (one band on a very short list).

My own parents were married a year earlier, though they divorced in 1995, when I was nine years old. When I discovered Sonic Youth as a teenager it was very easy, having around only one parent who was very left-brained, to consider Kim & Thurston artistic parental figures who took up the same space in my subconscious that my real parents did.

My real parents taught me everything they could about life. "Listening to music that isn't cool is stupid," my father would say to me. "Stop listening to your father," my mother would say to me. But when I was in my car or in my room, Sonic Youth taught me everything they could about art. And noise. Lot's of fuckin' noise.

They taught me things my parents never could. They taught me that you didn't have to tune your guitar the same way everyone else did. They taught me that the best art I create will always come from the subconscious, everything floating around in my mind that I don't yet know or understand. They taught me to create my own meaning.

Sometimes they illuminated the things my real parents couldn't properly communicate. Listening to songs like I Love Her All The Time, Tom Violence, Death To Our Friends, Dirty Boots and Rain King helped me to understand that some things are better understood when you're older.

The Death of the Buzz

After 16 years, WPBZ, The Buzz 103.1 FM is dead.

Let me start by saying this is not an obituary for a highly-acclaimed, local alternative rock station. This is not the end of a beloved mouthpiece by and for the forward-thinking, knuckle-scraping, sonic rebels at the cutting edge of everything angry, bad-ass and loud.

In no way did The Buzz push any envelopes, stick it to any Men or rock anybody's faces off, unless you were the type of person to disagree, thinking these things could be achieved by listening (incessantly, relentlessly, 24 hours-a-day) to songs by

30 Seconds to Mars,

Breaking Benjamin,

Three Days Grace,
Puddle of Mudd,
Rise Against,
Papa Roach,
Shinedown,
Daughtry
and Nickelback.

The Buzz always played the same corporate bullshit you could hear everywhere and anywhere else. They were not great; they were an annoyance, and after sixteen years somebody decided they should peddle their drivel on the Internet, like the rest of us.

For me, the news that came on Monday was welcome, vindication for all the years of listening to moronic songs I was mature enough to despise when I was fourteen, let alone twenty-five. Fitting closure for all those times in the past, driving home from Suncoast High School, when I had to say to myself through gritted teeth, "Oh, I guess we'll just listen to that Finger Eleven song again. OK."

Gently they did go into that good night. Rage they did not against the dying of the light.

But there are some people who want them back, and they are just as entitled to their opinion as I am to mine.

The truly great moments in their broadcast history came only a few times a year when upon me they would bestow a Buzz Recycled Weekend. Those weekends, when for three days I was granted music that brought me back to the days in the passenger seat of my father's car, were great for people like me, who, for just once in a while, wanted to hear songs by

Jimmie's Chicken Shack,

The Butthole Surfers,
Alien Ant Farm,
The Mars Volta,
The Breeders,
The Deftones,
Fiona Apple,
Radiohead,
The Pixies,
Metallica,

Placebo,
Primus,
R.E.M.,
Beck
and 311.

If these weekends were only more frequent (hell, if they only kept the songs in the regular rotation) maybe the Buzz would have kept listeners like me, and in doing so, kept their place on our dials.

Sonnet II

My northern scope, hot glowing local blonde,
Suspending liquid ghosts in shifting globes
With ginger syntax, horrid equipoise,
To bloom anew, in fertile digs beyond.

Sacred mariners serenely breaming
Barges of posterity attrition.
Damage lacks for foreign superstition;
Noble kindling substitutes for dreaming.

Sun through sabel palms, when burning devils,
Shakes the blissful, screaming interference.
Tides eroding stranger incoherence,
Raising dangers soon to fresher levels.

Idiot mouths chasing literal thrills
Brighter than debunking embryo gills.

The Return To Idiocy

You know those nights where you can't sleep because you've run out of Xanax, and all night your mind reels with unanswerable questions like,

Which demographic is paying the largest share of my grandparent's social security?

When did it become acceptable for seven-year-olds to have cell phones?

Why does the media think that I give a shit about Britney Spears?

The answer to these questions are, of course, the Millennials; all of us who were fortunate enough to be born during an actor's tenure as president of the United States. Some would say that the teenagers alive during this time had monopolized all of America's precious, nonrenewable Irony reserves, leaving little for the newborns to enjoy when the time came for them (fifteen years down the road) to also disdain authority and be generally pissed off at everything.

Luckily, these two generations shared a common forum for social consciousness: MTV. And with this forum came the greatest spokesmen of all time for the disillusioned and disaffected.

On October 27, 2011, after being off the air for almost 14 years, America was once again granted the privilege to watch the adventures of Beavis and Butt-Head. Adventures like getting hepatitis from a homeless person, propositioning a man to let his teenage daughter manually pleasure them or denigrating the music videos on television as they live in abject squalor.

Although it's not the first time an animated television show has returned after an extended period of unnecessary cancellation (ask Seth MacFarlane), it's still the longest period of time from which an animated show has returned. After all these years, what's remarkable about the show is how true Mike Judge has stayed to the original incarnation, down to the show's bluesy guitar opening.

The only things Judge changed about the show are what couldn't have gone without it: the cultural references and the television they vilify. MTV president Van Toffler told Rolling Stone in February that, in addition to music videos, Beavis and Butt-Head will lend their talents for criticism to movies, UFC fights and popular amateur web videos.

Beavis and Butt-Head airs Thursday night at 10 p.m. on MTV. Here's a taste, friends.