:: The Place Where I Say Stuff ::

:: Wednesday, March 17, 2004 ::

It's official. This is the last entry ever on this site. From now on, all my incoherent babbling can be found at www.inessentials.com/blog. Let the rejoicing begin.
:: timothy paul yenter 3/17/2004 01:43:00 PM [+] ::
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On Thursday night, Nicole and I went to the Liz Phair concert over at historic First Ave in Minneapolis. I became a Phair fan back in 1998 when I first heard "Polyester Bride" on the radio - probably on some incarnation of what is now Drive 105. My roommate Nathan bought the whitechocolatespaceegg album, which I diligently listened to over the next year or so.

At first putting the CD in the player was just for the pure pleasure of the catchy hooks and Phair's enchanting melodies. At some time in the winter of 1999, I suddenly listened to the lyrics to "Uncle Alvarez" for the first time, having heard the song dozens of times before. I was intrigued. The song starts by laughing at the dorky old painting of Uncle Alvarez which hangs on the wall of her family home; tall tales and legends surround this eccentric uncle. But the lyrics shift away from Uncle Alvarez and his picture to what this painted uncle thinks of the people living in the house. Suddenly, she's not poking fun at weird old Alvarez, but suggesting that his large living (and lying) contain dreams of a life fulfilled, which demonstrate the gap between the young dreams of the people living in the house and their weak, empty lives. It's an interesting little song, tucked away in the back corners of an album that received critically mixed reviews.

The reviews were mixed largely for two reasons. Everyone wanted another great Liz Phair album. Three-year had passed since her previous release, and people were ready for another. So there was a desire for a great album, but the standards were unrealistically high. Secondly, many critics and fans thought that the album sounded too "commercial" - the scent of selling out was strong in the air. People wanted the in-your-face indie Liz Phair, not this recent mother singing mature songs about adult relationships and motherhood.

Eventually I dug back through her catalog: Girlysounds - a two-tape demo of acousticish indie rock songs that often shocked audiences by their forthright talk about sex from a female perspective; Exile in Guyville - the critical darling of a debut on Matador/Capitol that paved the way for Alanis and the other mainstream girl-power acts of the 90s; and Whip-Smart - a commercially disappointing collection of moody, plodding songs. Then whitechocolatespaceegg in 1998. It was a five year break until her self-title album came out last year.

I had slowly become quite a Liz Phair fan. I still remember being so in awe and shock by Exile in Guyville (which she claimed was a song-by-song response to the Rolling Stones' Exile on Mainstreet), that I stopped everything I was doing to give it that first listen. I can only ever remember doing that on Radiohead's Kid A and U2's All That You Can't Leave Behind. I was checking fan sites for information about who this person was, digging up old articles about her debut on the national scene, uncovering the stories behind her lyrics, finding out about the Girlysounds demos. She was at the top of my list of acts I wanted to see live. Problem is, she had notorious stage fright. She released her first album just to show up all the musicians she dated who whined about how hard it was (she was always a visual artist, and says she brought her desire to push peoples' ideas from that recent movement in visual art). So when she made it big so quickly and had to perform in front of audiences, she was completely unprepared. Consequently, she didn't do many concerts.

For years I was waiting for the new Liz Phair album to come out and an opportunity to see her live. I even bought some bootlegged demos of her whitechocolatespaceegg sessions off of ebay. But when Liz Phair came out last summer, I was pretty disappointed. I only gave it one or two listens before dismissing it. Over the months I was glad to see her songs featured in movies and commercials. She could use the money. Like many of her fans, I suspect, I was disappointed by the radio pop sound (half the album was produced by The Matrix, the force behind Avril Lavigne), and seeming lack of substance to her lyrics. Still, when I saw that she was coming into town, I bought tickets. I couldn't resist, hoping that she would play a lot of her old stuff. Plus a few recent listens suggested that I was too quick to dismiss the album.

The show opened, and I settled in for an evening of watching. She was extremely uncomfortable on stage, her vocals were shaky, and her movements told the story of her nerves. She tried hiding behind a big plastic smile and sexy body language that just came off as awkward. So I thought I would sit through and appreciate hearing the songs live and learn a little bit about Liz Phair as she sang. Fortunately, a few songs into her show she warmed up and it turned into a pretty great concert, even for someone who wouldn't know much about her. She still kept smiling, although I think it had less to do with nerves and more just of pure joy at performing before a rapt full house. But watching her smile her way through tunes like "Divorce Song" was a little bizarre.

So now I've seen her live, but I'm still itching to see her perform a solo acoustic set rather than with a full band. She was trying very hard to put on a rock show, so she stayed away from a lot of her slower stuff. It was still one of the best set lists I've ever come across for any act. I remember wondering if she was just picking great songs, or if her body of work is so good that she could play any of it. There was a perfect blend of stuff from each album. I came to appreciate some of the newer songs a bit more, and was reminded of why her old stuff is just so good. And I suppose that's part of what a good concert does.

:: timothy paul yenter 3/15/2004 05:29:00 PM [+] ::
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There's been some interesting comments on the whole 'downshifting or not' entry. Right now, the coasters have a slight lead. According to JL!, his mechanic says, "If you want to feel like a race car driver, downshift. If you want your gears to last, put it in neutral and use the brake to slow down or stop. Gears aren't made to slow the car down."
:: timothy paul yenter 3/15/2004 01:04:00 PM [+] ::
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I've always considered myself a very good driver, and have worked very hard to attain that status. (Is it still status if it's only in my eyes? Sure, why not.) But there's a new wrinkle in my driving. My soon-to-be-parents-in-law generously lent me a car so I'm not quite as much of a slacker always bumming rides off their daughter. Problem is, it's a manual. I've never driven stick before, so I've been learning as I go.

I've always paid attention even while driving an automatic to the car's sounds, listening to it change gears, giving it a little extra or little less gas to make that shift as smooth as possible. So that made the shift to manual as smooth as could be expected, as well. But it just irritates me that I'm once again a bad driver. All the small stuff that worked so carefully on is either forgotten or ignored, and the stuff I am aware of is too hard to do because I also have to be thinking about shifting. Stupid clutch.

And there's some things I just don't understand, like downshifting. I haven't quite figured out when to do it, but I'm getting better. Even more, I'm not exactly sure why I need to do it. Sure, fifth to fourth or fourth to third I can understand. But after that, who cares? If I'm pulling up at a stoplight or stopsign, why not just throw in the clutch, put it in neutral and brake my way up to the intersection? I've heard of some people who do it. Against the idea, you're not in gear if you suddenly need to be, and you're wearing on the brake pads. On the other hand, won't downshifting wear the transmission sooner (much more expensive than brake pads)?

What I've settled on is practicing downshifting now while I'm learning so that I can do it if I need to. But after that, why not just coast?
:: timothy paul yenter 3/12/2004 05:15:00 PM [+] ::
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Given the weakness of the offering, this unveiling is a bit anti-climactic, but here it goes...

Behold inESSENTIALS.

Clearly a work in progress. Maybe "work" is still too strong a term. An idea in progress. A twinkle in the eye, so to speak.

Let the rejoicing begin.
:: timothy paul yenter 3/09/2004 10:36:00 PM [+] ::
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I admit, I have been a hollywood gossip junkie for some time now. I like to read the Celebrity News and Studio Briefing sections at imdb.com to keep up on the latest. The best thing I've seen in a long time? Ditzy Jessica Simpson, after reading numerous tabloid articles declaring that she was pregnant, became convinced that she really was pregnant and forced the doctors to check. Turns out, there was no baby. The articles were mistaken; apparently, all she wanted was a puppy.
:: timothy paul yenter 3/07/2004 11:23:00 AM [+] ::
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This may clock in as my busiest week ever. Every day I wake up, get to work, and force myself to go to bed at night because I'm so dang tired. I have to concentrate on relaxation times. I haven't blogged before midnight all week because I can't get 10 minutes of computer time during the day. I haven't watched a film (in the theater on tape or on tv) in nearly two weeks, which is incredible for those who know my viewing habits. I suppose that all sounds like it's whining, which maybe it is a little bit, mostly it's just amazement. I haven't had a spare moment to read so much as a chapter in a book since I can't remember when.

[begin tangent]
Although today on my break at work I read an interesting article on Bob Hope in the AARP magazine that I found in a box in the breakroom. Yep, I read AARP. It was either that or a two year-old People article on Dudley Moore. The Bob Hope article was pretty interesting. Turns out he has a half-million joke walk-in storage library in his house. That's a lotta funnies.
[end tangent]

The last book I was reading, that I can remember at least, was Killing Rage by bell hooks. It's not killing rage in the sense of ending rage, but is meant to describe the positive (if focused directly) force that wells up in someone (particularly African-Americans in the US) who face accepted, institutionalized, ignored racism every day. Killing rage is the kind of rage that makes you want to kill the person who sits by and lets racism go on unchecked. Killing rage is the kind of rage that can bring change. Killing rage is the kind of rage that is impolite, difficult, empowering, and necessary.

It's tough to know what to make of bell hooks. She's a bit more Malcom X than MLK. So is she right on the mark, prophetic? Or is she way off in left field, misguided? I didn't get far enough in the book to work up a solid opinion. At least she's thought-provoking. She's not so crazy as to be obviously wrong. Or if she's wrong, she's wrong in a good way.

Maybe that's all most of us will ever get.

[postscript: The new website is not yet ready for primetime. Tomorrow. Maybe. Or not. I don't really know.]
:: timothy paul yenter 3/06/2004 12:23:00 AM [+] ::
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It's happened. I won't say what it is yet, but my URL has been established. Odd that on a day filled with wedding planning, parking my domain would make me feel like an adult. Geek quotient: 8.3
:: timothy paul yenter 3/03/2004 11:57:00 PM [+] ::
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It's been about a week since I've posted, but this has been one of the busiest weeks ever on my site. Apparently people just can't get enough Tim in their lives. Squeezing out every possible hope. Or maybe not.

The search for the perfect domain name goes on. I've had some great suggestions, and I think I'm closing in on a decision. Perhaps tomorrow I will announce that I am throwing my support toward John Kerry after my humiliating losses on Super Tuesday. Oh, wait, that's not me. Sometimes I forget. But perhaps tomorrow will be the grand unveiling of a new website that can stay under construction for the next fourteen months. Doesn't that sound like fun?

Since the Oscars were broadcast on Sunday and today is already Tuesday (almost Wednesday), I am in danger of having my blogging license revoked for not having said anything about the telecast. So in a desperate scramble to reclaim my waning grip on social relevance, here's my three cents (inflation). In general, I stopped caring who won Best Picture. Sometimes I just shake my head when I think about it. Oscar voters have certain tendencies, and move in predictable motions. Sometimes I hope for the best, but more often I expect the worst, like Shakespeare in Love and A Beautiful Mind. But anyway, on with the show.

Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King was definitely not the best film of the last year. Maybe not top three. It's not a travesty that ROTK won, and I certainly have a lot of admiration for all the work that went into it (it definitely deserved many of those technical Oscars), but best film over a 365 day stretch? Nope. And I'm not saying Lost in Translation was better. A good film, but seriously overrated. (Or maybe I just hate the fact that Scarlett Johansson was a philosophy student from Yale who didn't know what to do with her life?) Mystic River had a better script, better acting, and better dircting than ROTK. I know it's not epic, but sometimes subtlety is more impressive than another helicopter shot of New Zealand. But the best film of last year (actually, it was originally released in 2002 but for some reason Oscar decided it qualified for 2003) was without a doubt City of God. This wasn't just the best film of last year, it's one of the best films of the last twenty years. I think Rogert Ebert said it was "one of the best films you'll ever see." He's not wrong. What are the other best films of the last twenty years? I don't know. Maybe In the Mood for Love or Wings of Desire or Three Colors: Red. Maybe something else. Point is, see City of God.
:: timothy paul yenter 3/03/2004 01:06:00 AM [+] ::
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