Just a Little Something - Lucky Charms

This is repulsive and makes me a bit uncomfortable. Image via Wikipedia

I'm still upset that the red balloon was added as the "new" lucky charm marshmallow. A red balloon is lucky? Says who? What is the origin of this tale? The only symbolic use of a red balloon I know was in the Sixth Sense and that just said there were dead people around. That's not lucky. It's frightening, and I don't want it in my cereal.

Goodbye John Hughes

Image by MacQ via Flickr

I knew I had reached a point of no return in my stealthy maturation when I began consistently refusing every new offering from the youth fueled media and clothing industry. I cannot connect with teens of today. Lawful restrictions aside, I fail to establish any intimate understanding of teenagers or their interests, outlooks, styles, and actions. This landscape however was one in which film legend John Hughes could stroll through comfortably and confidently, despite his handicap of being an adult.

Though he had a limited directing career, every movie he crafted was a comedic and dramatic gem. Like early Spielberg, Hughes knew how to get an emotional depth from his actors that made them more than just characters. He embraced his audience and catered to them, feeding my generation bittersweet spoonfuls of our own angst and humor. As a writer I admire Hughes' ability to tell great stories, build memorable characters, and construct dialogue that can be both endearing and hilarious.

I don't know if current teens appreciate or are even aware of John Hughes and his cinematic canon. I don't need to list his accomplishments, as the people who know, know and the people who don't, don't matter. The mostly thirty-something fans who can join me in fond memory of Hughes feel his loss the most. We may not connect with the teens of today, but when viewing any Hughes masterpiece we can connect with the teens we used to be.

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WriterType

Image by Shiny Things via Flickr

A friend of mine, many moons ago, pegged me as wanting to be the type of writer who would drink too much and spew prose like others would spew their last meal. I knew he was right even then, that I would gladly embrace any excuse for my mediocre storytelling. The only problem is that writing is one of the only things I just can't do when drunk. I can still verbalize a good joke and weave an amusing tale for the crowd while intoxicated. I just can't project a complete thought onto the page.

When I first began to think myself a writer, I romanticized the pains and trappings of the profession. Images of my future self bubbled up through my imagination like freshly poured champagne. I'd naturally be a success, I thought, but I'd avoid the spotlight and shun my fans. I'd be gruff, haggard and unkempt, wear an old torn and stained sports coat, wreaking of gin or whiskey. My publisher would loath me and my editor would dread my idea of a finished product. Though I would fail to know war, like Hemingway I would be brutal, tenacious, stoic and periodically inconsolable. Yes, this is the terribly wonderful man I wanted to be.

No one employs me as a wordsmith and likely never will, but I'm still drawn to the practice and the persona. Perhaps it was my nascent familiarity with these traits that prompted my journalistic desires at all. Maybe I didn't want to be a writer. I was just psychologically suited for it. Of course I have no novels to speak of and no screenplays to promote. I write now because it keeps me grounded and gives me purpose. It keeps me alive.

However, if anyone wants to start paying, I can start shopping for sports coats.

Weezer's missing ingredient

Image by parn via Flickr

Upon the release of Weezer's third album I was confounded. I heard sounds emanating from my car stereo that had familiar Weezer flavors, but as I sat listening in the Hasting's parking lot, each track felt cold, shallow, and foreign. I never want artists to safely reproduce earlier works because growth and experimentation is key to a lasting band, but where was my Weezer?

Plastic wrapping and sticky security strips, once a nagging barrier between me and fresh audio pleasantries, vomited from my shopping bag, reflecting my sense of disgust. The songs, the whole album, was short quips of meaningless dribble; it was cookie cutter pop that didn't justify their previous years of silence. I didn't understand. I had heard "hash pipe" and thought it was kind of ridiculous but assumed naively that it would be the isolated radio single that was necessary for album promotion. It was instead the baseline of mediocrity for the green "Weezer" album.

I looked at the cover and looked at the faces. Something was terribly wrong. I drove home, able to listen to half the album once over again, needing answers. I called a friend who I thought would share in my dispair, but he failed to hear me as I assumed he failed to hear that disaster of a CD. "It's not that bad," he said.

I went into a rant that would be repeated many times over the next few years, trying to explain how solid and timeless the first two Weezer albums were and that these recent imposters were shells of the men they once were, devoid of talent and soul.

Weeks later, after a few attempts at "giving it another shot," I retired Weezer's third album into a sleeve somewhere in the back of my CD case, along with other collections of dissapointment and various gifted discs. Many months passed and I heard rumors of another album release. "It all makes sense now" I thought. That was just a fun throwaway album, like a bunch of B-side songs rejected from the upcoming legitimate CD. It was all just silly antics and they weren't being serious, those goofy guys! I was relieved, but only temporarily.

Of course a replay of previous year's events would occur with more angry ranting and general heartbreak, but with time, and acceptance at Weezer's irreversible decline and failure as respectable musicians, I moved on. I found new bands and new sounds and some new disappointments as well.

The painful resurgence of this subject is due to Pandora's insistence on recommending Weezer songs for many of my personalized stations. I decline most and praise a few, but it got me wondering just what happened to those guys. Some research, more simplified and unified now due to Wikipedia, and I discover the removal of bassist Matt Sharp was the reason all musical and structural integrity was eradicated from this tumbling tower of a band.

As others have said, Sharp is no musical genius, and perhaps he wasn't the heart and soul of Weezer or their sole talent, but it is unquestionable that his absense severely altered their sound, lyrical depth and upward development as a group.

Rethinking the concept of the third album, I realize that maybe the remaining members were very self aware of the band's reinvention. The album is self titled like their first one and the cover is a solid color, green instead of blue, with all the members striking a pose as if introducing themselves to the world. It is only in thinking that they too recognized Weezer had become something else, even if it was a devolvement, that I regain some thread of respect for the band. In listening to those first two albums I hold on to this thread tightly, but with great solemnity I will be forever walking away.

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