Stuff of the Year – Moe’s Picks
44th Presidential Inauguration - Calm down. This isn’t about him, it’s about you. On one hand, this was another routine (yet fascinating) display of our model of government; on the other, it was completely different. The year began with a sight I thought I would never see: a black man sworn in as the president of the United States. If you have lived where I’ve lived and been where I’ve been, you know what I’m talking about. There was a time, and it was within the life span of millions who voted in 2008, that even the suggestion of a black president would have incited riots and widespread hate crimes. But once again, a peaceful and surprisingly quick transfer of power took place for the 44th time in our young nation’s history, and nobody died. Those two things are remarkable if you consider the tremendous political power at stake and, that little chestnut, the Civil War. It is a subtle and welcome reminder that, while I don’t like everything that happens here (admit it, nobody does), we live in a pretty amazing place. We can say what we like and we can disagree, vehemently at times, but we aren’t going to disappear in the night or be stoned in the street. For these things, I am grateful.
HDTV - Well, I’ll be slapped and called a tree frog, broadcast High Definition Television has FINALLY arrived as the standard. Men on the moon… 1969. HDTV…. 2009. Somebody has been manipulating my wallet. Don’t give me your technical mumbo jumbo explanations, I’m not even listening. It’s all a lie! But there is a sunny side, a certain weather anchor is now even more defined than before! If only I could remember where I put those spurs…
Michael Jackson - June 25, 2009, provided us with one of those moments where many people will remember where they were and what they were doing when the news broke: out of nowhere, Michael Jackson was dead. Plenty can be said of his private life, much of it embarrassing and awkward, but few need many words, if any, to describe his music. In particular, I’m thinking about the music he recorded in the late 1970s through the end of the 1980s. The day after Jackson died, I was off with a high school marching band at a parade in another state. It was a big parade with 15-20 marching bands, which amounts to a lot of noise. Simply out of the need to manage a crowd that large, all the bands were housed in a baseball stadium and fed hot dogs and Mountain Dew: excellent idea. To keep the band members occupied, music was playing over the loud speakers; a constant variety of whatever it is the kids like these days. But when Thriller came on, much to my delight, about 1000 high school students got up and started dancing. And they continued through Billy Jean and Bad. Then I saw the same phenomenon happening nearly everywhere I went, be it the mall, stadium, or outside on a sidewalk. All these people were wrapped up in a moment of total bliss and, in my opinion, the finest tribute to pay a musician. No need to further eulogize or demonize the man, there’s nothing more that need be said about Michael Jackson. Just dance.
Airplanes - Because of these marvels of engineering, we had Philthy Phil Haymes (the official 4th stool at the bar) in our loving embrace for another couple of weeks. It’s special because he’s from London or England, I can’t remember, which is super far from here. Either way, considering the spectacular conclusion to Shmopera #2, significantly enhanced by the meedly, meedly, shreddy guitar of one Philthy (via the intertubes), the thought of recording more of this nonsense in the same room was too much to bear. Not only did he show up ready to play, but he also had 4 bottles of Old Rosie Cloudy Scrumpy. It’s an apple booze about a tractor. In a word, London. Or England. I can’t remember.
South Carolina - Governor Mark Sanford’s Argentinian-Appalachian adventure; Representative Joe Wilson’s State of the Union flatulent ; “Keep your government hands off my Medicare!” – some poor schmuck at a town hall meeting. Oh, South Carolina, you crazy, eight-toothed bastard, you’re too much!
Roland V-Drums - These have been around for many years, but out of nowhere, they came rushing in to save… or inspire the day! I started off with the entry level kit I bought off Craig’s List for an unreasonably low price, but have already upgraded due to extreme badassitude. The internal sound bank is a bit shitty and really not intended for live performance, but we only needed the set to function as a MIDI controller we could hit with sticks… and not break. Digital keyboards don’t work like that. Weird. Anyway, those beauties allowed us to begin recording via digital drum set. Until now, everything we did had been a combination of loops or a keyboard kit, which is hard as hell to play. While we thought this was going to be a handy little tool for recording the Shmopera, it instead led us down an entirely different path, which brings us to….
ZomBOOsical! - What is there to say? Please buy it. Again and again and again! Those lobsters are super-the-deliciousist! And I’ve made a lovely lobster coat and lobster shorts, though the lobster-claw tinkle slot (where the zipper is usually found) can be a bit treacherous to navigate. In about 3 1/2 weeks we wrote and recorded a musical tome that would make Homer turn and run from his sophomoric Odyssey in shame. It would have been finished in less than a week, but we had to go to those stupid jobs. Though, to be fair to Hilden, there were some, we’ll call them “inspired,” tracks that required about 3-4 weeks of editing. Plus he needed time to brew all that science he pours over the music stuff. It’s very technical and works exactly as I have described. He pours science on it. Out of his science cup. ZomBOOsical!
Shmups - What a great year for a genre I thought had been left behind! Inside of 12 months we saw the release of Raiden IV, Raiden Fighters Aces, and Mushihime-sama Futari! Granted they were all for one system (360), but still… kick ass!
XBox Live - It’s been a full year for me, back in the saddle, as it were. I dropped my Live account back in Fall 2006, when I decided against investing in a 360 and no longer played with John or Hilden because I moved within a reasonable drive for the the first time in 6 years. The single reason I bought an Xbox in the first place was so we could still hang, albeit in a virtual sex room, or game lobby, whatever, once a week. When I moved back to the area, there wasn’t a need to maintain the account anymore. So I quit. But after those knuckleheads bought me a 360 for Xmas last year, I had to sign up again. Not much choice, really. And it’s been fantastic! The service itself continues to improve with a generally consistent formula of two steps forward, one step back, thus demonstrating somebody has finally created an online environment that works remarkable well on a home console and interfaces relatively well with much of the social networking and customizable trends in music. It has also provided some tremendously entertaining moments with some of our good friends from the website, podcast, former lives, and beyond. In general, I don’t play games nearly as much as I used to, but it is always great to know that when I do log on, there is going to be somebody who’s up for a round or two of digital shenanigans. Excellent.
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Tags: stuff of the year
January 3rd, 2010 at 6:19 pm
Electronic drums? Are you trying to find your inner Rick Allen? If so I think you should stay away from having a wife…. and driving sport cars in England.