I've never understood Morrissey's appeal (except to similarly overwrought teenagers), though I could see tolerating him in the Smiths to hear Johnny Marr's guitar work.
If I ever do have a gay sexual encounter, you can rest assured that "Ask" will be blaring in the background. And if you can't appreciate a line like, "Writing frightening verse/To a buck-toothed girl in Luxembourg," then your soul is dead.
A co-worker loaned me one of Morrissey's latest (You Are The Quarry) because he said I had to hear it. It had so crossed the line over into unintentional self-parody it was actually kind of amusing.
The best thing about Morrissey is his name check in Stupid Day Job by Wally Pleasant which, conveniently, someone just put online last week.
You know, Tim, when I worked at a mental healthcare agency, they always taught us that the best way to evaluate the likelihood of a person doing something was to ask them "Do you have a plan?"
It had so crossed the line over into unintentional self-parody it was actually kind of amusing.
I told my brother once that I thought that, with the Smiths, the self-parody and amusingness was intentional (insert lengthy explanation about how this does not mean that I am dismissing the Smiths out of hand, though the pleasure I get from them is somewhat guilty). My brother said, "I think the lesson of Morrissey's solo career was that it wasn't. No, the lesson of Morrissey's solo career is that it really was all about the guitar."
I have to say, the Smiths were rather ruined for me when, while I was listening to them in my dorm room and feeling funky over a boy who didn't love me, said boy (who was a good friend) stopped by, opened the door, and said "oh, stop sitting here listening to the Smiths and feeling sorry for yourself, and come out to the pub with the rest of us."
I don't know that I ever sat around listening to the Smiths feeling sorry for myself. In the dorms I think I would sit around listening to Tom Waits and feeling sorry for myself. More recently (though not that recently) Lucinda Williams and Gillian Welch. I don't think the "come on out to the pub" move would work with Tom Waits, though properly speaking you shouldn't be sitting around listening to Tom Waits feeling sorry for yourself and not drinking.
One time when I was sitting around in a dorm room listening to a Smiths concert on the radio an extremely cute girl I'd never really talked to before rushed in and said, "You're listening to the Smiths? I love the Smiths!" I suspect that this confirms every stereotype y'all have of me.
13 -- what's Gillian Welch like? I was sitting in with Felt last night and one of the songs we played was her "Pass You By". Sounded kinda country but that could have been the cover rather than the song itself -- many of their covers of songs I knew sounded quite different from the originals.
All these years I thought he was being so ironic magnets stuck to him, which was why I enjoyed his lyrics so much. Now I don't know what to think.
I would worry about someone who could write 'And if a double-decker bus/crashes into us/To die by your side/is such a heavenly way to die' in perfect earnestness.
If it makes it any funnier, the guy who dragged me out to the pub and away from mooning over him kinda reminds me of Ogged. Actually, the other way around, but that sentence structure doesn't work as well.
With the exception of Soul Journey and perhaps any albums she may have done since them, she's pretty old-style. Much of her stuff is two acoustic guitars and two voices, and she self-consciously models a lot of her stuff after old folk tunes; f'rinstance, much of "Elvis Presley Blues" is very reminiscent of Mississippi John Hurt's "Spike Driver Blues."
I like her a lot, and believe Ogged (PBUH) was a fan.
Want to know embarrassing? When I broke up with my long-term college boyfriend, I came home, turned on MTV, and Cher's song "Believe" was playing. In my weakened state, it, like, spoke to me so I went out and bought it and played it over and over for about a week. Because I did believe in life after love, dammit!
I once only semi-ironically listened to Erasure's Oh L'Amour during a pity party. But it was at least semi-ironically. Sometimes I like to pity myself and laugh at myself at the same time.
We can all agree that what one does when broken-hearted and self-pitying is likely to be embarrassing and not to be held against one. (For instance: the whole TiVo period of this blog.)
I also have to say I like the idea of "the TiVo period of this blog", like Ogged was an artist who worked with certain themes in various periods throughout his career.
All these years I thought he was being so ironic magnets stuck to him, which was why I enjoyed his lyrics so much.
Yeah, that's always been my take on Moz, too. You know, among Mexicans, the man's like a God.
One time when I was sitting around in a dorm room listening to a Smiths concert on the radio an extremely cute girl I'd never really talked to before rushed in and said, "You're listening to the Smiths? I love the Smiths!"
Ah, the pity party. If there's one thing that rock/pop music is good for, it's tracing out all the different directions self-pity can take. Horrible early Tom Waits is one path; I took it myself once upon a time. Toussaint McCall's "Nothing Takes the Place of You" always works as well. Which reminds me: when Sinead's cover of "Nothing Compares 2 U" hit the top, was that the biggest, nationwide pity party ever?
In recent years, as middle age looms, Charlie Rich's "Life Has Its Little Ups and Downs" has taken over. I've stooped so low as to post the .mp3 myself, but enough about that.
Various Unfogged commenters say these pictures are not the authentic face of BitchPhd masturbating. I wish I agreed with that. But, sadly, they are her very image today.
Oy. All that fake Louis Armstrong-style singing, maudlin piano stuff. Horrible, horrible, horrible.
But in fact the moping in question was done to Rain Dogs, Franks Wild Years, and Big Time.
Well, those are better. At least Rain Dogs is, aside from a few songs ("Time" is unlistenable.) A couple of good songs on Swordfishtrombones as well. I was always put off by the way the vocals sound on Frank's Wild Year's, like they were recorded over a telephone.
You want the ultimate pity party, you gotta go country. Morrisey's got nothing on Merle Haggard.
ogmb, I will not be swayed by your leftist moonbat resistance to plain facts. You're the same people who have been saying that Iraq is a quagmire for years now.
80: I'm torn between agreeing enthusiastically with the last paragraph, dissenting from your choice of exemplar (George Jones! Hank Williams!), and quietly tiptoeing away from the dangerous maniac who's only lukewarm about late-80s Tom Waits.
83: Jones or Williams would do as well--I chose Merle because he's underrated as a purveyor of sorrowful navel-gazing. Also, I don't care for Jones that much, aside from a half-dozen songs. Though I must of those: they are maudlin and full of self-pity. They are magnificent!
I thought I was disparaging early to mid 1980's Waits, but I see that you are right. After that, I don't think I've cared for more than a song or two by him. If the Ramones covered it, it's ok, otherwise I don't want to hear it.
Also good for those trying to be alone and brave: Billy Bragg's Worker's Playtime.
Damon and Naomi's More Sad Hits is a great mope album.
And there's nothing like being just-friendsed by a girl you're really into, coming home, and putting on the record you bought a couple of days ago and haven't got around to listening yet, which happens to be In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning.
Bits of Chet Baker Sings are also great for a melancholy 50s moment. Some of Curtis Mayfield's stuff with the Impressions also works.
Growing up I hated the Smiths but only by association -- the people who were huge Smiths fans were often wankers -- it was only later I got into them and while I love Marr's playing, he hasn't done anything really interesting since he stopped working with Morrisey.
They are, annoyingly and inexplicably, not on iTunes in America. And apparently you cannot download music from other countries' iTunes. And all my Housemartins is on cassette or vinyl. Feh.
This is a CD of London O, Hull 4 (and if anyone can explain that thanks) I bought for $3 while on spring break in a city with better CD stores than Lubbock. Good stuff.
Do you have any evidence that FYC and the Housemartins are not gay? Okay, what's-his-name did marry the blonde model-looking woman from television, but that doesn't prove anything.
99: Wait, I think I get it. In 90 "a couple of days ago" means a couple of days before the just-friendsing, which took place years and years ago. I am largely over it.
The lady's honor has been publicly called into question. It's either protesting or challenging you to a duel, and I think the Mineshaft would be irked at me if I shot you.
Man, I go away for however long I've been away and everyone's musical goes to hell.
1. I like the Smiths and you should too.
2. The dissonant part of Gillian Welch's "Time (the Revelator)" is great.
3. After hearing Buck Owens make fun of Johnny Cash on the radio driving to the airport yesterday (on a CD I just purchased at, of all places, the Downtown Music Gallery), I'm having trouble taking him very seriously. I know no one mentioned him.
The taste || of love is sweet
When hearts || like ours meet
I stole your wife and that's a fact
But she ain't no good so you can have her back.
4. The vocals on Franks Wild Years are occasionally annoying, but they're different from song to song, and the guitar solos on "Down in the Hole" makes up for everything you might dislike about the rest of the album (which, if you're right-minded, isn't very much). Additionally, his first album is good! I even like "Ol' 55".
Lauding Morrissey, whom I believe wrote most of the Smiths' songs.
Part of the typing thing was that my fingers were misaligned on the keyboard. And it's not so much tiredness as it is EYES HURT and I don't want to look at the glaring whiteness of the screen, but also tired. I hate air travel! I think I'll go lie down now.
For a second, I thought 148 meant that you approved my cubemate's germ warfare campaign, in which case I would have had to kick your ass. As long as you're just approving worthy comment spam, go ahead.
I don't get that comment spam: no links, no action plan, no request for money. Is he just a particularly aggressive village historian? Misguided minister of tourism?
'morrissey, you are the quarry', best he's done in ages.
Really? Other than Irish Blood English Heart it bored me to tears. For me Southpaw Grammar, Maladjusted and Vauxhall and I rank among the best he's recorded, marred or marrless.
I have just spent about twenty minutes ineffectually searching for a comment where I responded to a query from Drymala about HBO's "Big Love." Which is better, the MT or the Google site search, and why are neither of them working out for me?
I work in the microforms department of my school library (which is exactly as boring a job as it sounds) and my conclusion is that microfilm was a remarkable medium for the 1950s and it still is a remarkable medium for the 1950s.
155: B, I know what you mean, but it's hard to explain.
159: As it happens, what I've been doing is introducing the 1950s to the 21st century: I'm scanning the microfilm I want and burning the individual pages onto CDs. It's been tedious and slow (about 2 minutes per image, most of which time I spend sitting there as the scanner runs), but so mindless that I've been able to read blogs articles/books while I work. But I just learned today that the scanner can't handle the small print of newspapers, so it's back to the old school machines for me.
Well, certain time periods seem to be getting a lot of help from the digitizing projects, but as far as I know only some of the Congressional records I use have been put on the web. The main newspapers I need are too local to be a high priority for most people, and the same goes for the handwritten correspondence.
157: The MT search for the keywords "jackmormon" and "polygamy" turned up what you're looking for, but google got me nowhere. It may be too recent for the index.
"You know that famous Adam on the Sistine Chapel ceiling whose fingers are nearly touching God's but not quite? Well, I've stroked him. I've run my hand along his naked body, and I've slapped that big, muscled thigh of his. Not a hard slap, mind you. Just a soft slap of affection that ended on a rub. I've even stroked his sweet little willy. I know I shouldn't have done. But I couldn't stop myself. And it was probably the single most exciting moment I have had in art.
I've never understood Morrissey's appeal (except to similarly overwrought teenagers), though I could see tolerating him in the Smiths to hear Johnny Marr's guitar work.
And to think you were once the Hero.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 11:28 AM
Are you lauding Morrissey or dissing Marr?
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 11:30 AM
Lauding Morrissey, whom I believe wrote most of the Smiths' songs.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 11:34 AM
Sigh. I hate to do this...
You priss.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 11:36 AM
3 -- whom s/b who
Posted by The Modesto Kid | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 11:41 AM
If I ever do have a gay sexual encounter, you can rest assured that "Ask" will be blaring in the background. And if you can't appreciate a line like, "Writing frightening verse/To a buck-toothed girl in Luxembourg," then your soul is dead.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 11:42 AM
A co-worker loaned me one of Morrissey's latest (You Are The Quarry) because he said I had to hear it. It had so crossed the line over into unintentional self-parody it was actually kind of amusing.
The best thing about Morrissey is his name check in Stupid Day Job by Wally Pleasant which, conveniently, someone just put online last week.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 11:43 AM
If I ever do have a gay sexual encounter
You know, Tim, when I worked at a mental healthcare agency, they always taught us that the best way to evaluate the likelihood of a person doing something was to ask them "Do you have a plan?"
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 11:45 AM
Let us all pause a moment to savor that pwnage.
OK...
It had so crossed the line over into unintentional self-parody it was actually kind of amusing.
I told my brother once that I thought that, with the Smiths, the self-parody and amusingness was intentional (insert lengthy explanation about how this does not mean that I am dismissing the Smiths out of hand, though the pleasure I get from them is somewhat guilty). My brother said, "I think the lesson of Morrissey's solo career was that it wasn't. No, the lesson of Morrissey's solo career is that it really was all about the guitar."
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 12:14 PM
the sudden appearance of Morrissey's testicles.
Please reassure me that "Ringleader of the Tormentors" is an audio CD and not a video of any form.
Posted by My Alter Ego | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 12:17 PM
I have to say, the Smiths were rather ruined for me when, while I was listening to them in my dorm room and feeling funky over a boy who didn't love me, said boy (who was a good friend) stopped by, opened the door, and said "oh, stop sitting here listening to the Smiths and feeling sorry for yourself, and come out to the pub with the rest of us."
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 12:20 PM
9: Matt, the reason The Smiths appeared to be such an amusingly parodic band was in fact because the guitar was mocking the lyrics.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 12:24 PM
I don't know that I ever sat around listening to the Smiths feeling sorry for myself. In the dorms I think I would sit around listening to Tom Waits and feeling sorry for myself. More recently (though not that recently) Lucinda Williams and Gillian Welch. I don't think the "come on out to the pub" move would work with Tom Waits, though properly speaking you shouldn't be sitting around listening to Tom Waits feeling sorry for yourself and not drinking.
One time when I was sitting around in a dorm room listening to a Smiths concert on the radio an extremely cute girl I'd never really talked to before rushed in and said, "You're listening to the Smiths? I love the Smiths!" I suspect that this confirms every stereotype y'all have of me.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 12:28 PM
Did she give you a kitten?
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 12:31 PM
13 -- what's Gillian Welch like? I was sitting in with Felt last night and one of the songs we played was her "Pass You By". Sounded kinda country but that could have been the cover rather than the song itself -- many of their covers of songs I knew sounded quite different from the originals.
Posted by The Modesto Kid | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 12:33 PM
Did she give you a kitten?
Is that what the kids are calling it these days?
Posted by My Alter Ego | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 12:35 PM
Morrissey is being serious?
All these years I thought he was being so ironic magnets stuck to him, which was why I enjoyed his lyrics so much. Now I don't know what to think.
I would worry about someone who could write 'And if a double-decker bus/crashes into us/To die by your side/is such a heavenly way to die' in perfect earnestness.
Posted by winna | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 12:39 PM
If it makes it any funnier, the guy who dragged me out to the pub and away from mooning over him kinda reminds me of Ogged. Actually, the other way around, but that sentence structure doesn't work as well.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 12:42 PM
With the exception of Soul Journey and perhaps any albums she may have done since them, she's pretty old-style. Much of her stuff is two acoustic guitars and two voices, and she self-consciously models a lot of her stuff after old folk tunes; f'rinstance, much of "Elvis Presley Blues" is very reminiscent of Mississippi John Hurt's "Spike Driver Blues."
I like her a lot, and believe Ogged (PBUH) was a fan.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 12:45 PM
19 about Gillian Welch. She also, you may have gathered, tends toward the depressing.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 12:46 PM
I drink and listen to Tom Waits when I'm happy. I'm too embarrassed to admit what I listen to when I'm throwing a pity party.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 12:46 PM
21 - ABBA!
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 12:48 PM
I'm going to assume that 22 means "Also Becks Be Ambarrassed," because the alternative makes no sense.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 12:50 PM
I invite Nina Simone to a lot of my pity parties.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 12:50 PM
22: In the throes of a major-league pity party, that would be perverse.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 12:50 PM
Also, apo is a pussy.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 12:51 PM
You are what you eat.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 12:51 PM
Want to know embarrassing? When I broke up with my long-term college boyfriend, I came home, turned on MTV, and Cher's song "Believe" was playing. In my weakened state, it, like, spoke to me so I went out and bought it and played it over and over for about a week. Because I did believe in life after love, dammit!
You may all point and laugh now.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 12:52 PM
I once only semi-ironically listened to Erasure's Oh L'Amour during a pity party. But it was at least semi-ironically. Sometimes I like to pity myself and laugh at myself at the same time.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 12:55 PM
We can all agree that what one does when broken-hearted and self-pitying is likely to be embarrassing and not to be held against one. (For instance: the whole TiVo period of this blog.)
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 12:56 PM
Let's just say there's some very whiny emo that has gone through heavy rotation a few times.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 12:57 PM
Sometimes I like to pity myself and laugh at myself at the same time.
See, and in re 17, that's my reading of Smiths-era Morrissey.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 12:58 PM
self-pitying is likely to be embarrassing and not to be held against one
If I said you had a pitiful body, would you hold it against me?
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 1:10 PM
I so wanna know which whiny emo. Not that I'd recognize it, since I've lost track of contemporary pop, but I bet I could find some mp3s.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 1:11 PM
Human Drama. That shit'll make you want to kill yourself.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 1:12 PM
I so wanna know which whiny emo.
New Amsterdams and Dashboard Confessional, mostly.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 1:13 PM
Heh. I was thinking of emailing you and offering naked pictures in exchange for embarrassing information. Glad I waited a minute on that thought ;)
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 1:14 PM
That shit'll make you want to kill yourself.
The picture on their front page makes me want to kill myself. No, wait. Him, I mean.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 1:14 PM
I also have to say I like the idea of "the TiVo period of this blog", like Ogged was an artist who worked with certain themes in various periods throughout his career.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 1:15 PM
I could produce much, much more embarrassing information than that for naked pictures.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 1:15 PM
But would it be embarrassing information I actually wanted?
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 1:16 PM
Probably less than I want the naked pictures, alas.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 1:17 PM
"Produce embarrassing information" is a pretty clunky euphemism.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 1:18 PM
43: It's no "thick southern drawl," it's true.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 1:23 PM
I would think that a truly enormous cock would be kinda clunky, yeah.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 1:24 PM
All these years I thought he was being so ironic magnets stuck to him, which was why I enjoyed his lyrics so much.
Yeah, that's always been my take on Moz, too. You know, among Mexicans, the man's like a God.
One time when I was sitting around in a dorm room listening to a Smiths concert on the radio an extremely cute girl I'd never really talked to before rushed in and said, "You're listening to the Smiths? I love the Smiths!"
That could be a Belle & Sebastian song.
Posted by Paul | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 1:51 PM
I would think that a truly enormous cock would be kinda clunky, yeah.
Sorry, boys and girls, he said emo.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 1:57 PM
LOL. So it's all a sham. That explains a lot....
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 1:59 PM
Never underestimate, people. Especially you, B.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 2:05 PM
Hey, I'm willing to believe whatever I'm told--I'm gullible like that--but I'm, ah, open to whatever comes along unless definitive proof is provided.
I so do not want to write this conference paper. Who wants to do it for me?
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 2:09 PM
Who wants to do it for me?
The "it for" is superfluous.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 2:11 PM
50 -- Why not go to the experts?
Posted by The Modesto Kid | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 2:13 PM
s/b the experts
Posted by The Modesto Kid | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 2:14 PM
Actually, apo, I've reached the point in my procrastination/anxiety loop where I'm seriously considering taking a masturbation break.
But I really have to write this paper.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 2:18 PM
You could send pictures of that.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 2:20 PM
Then I could take one.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 2:20 PM
I could do a lot of things. Like write this fucking paper, for one, if I'd just stop spazzing about it.
I had too much goddamn coffee this morning.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 2:22 PM
Hey, what was that site that would tell you songs you'd like based on other songs you said you'd like?
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 2:27 PM
This?
Posted by Tarrou | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 2:48 PM
Ah, the pity party. If there's one thing that rock/pop music is good for, it's tracing out all the different directions self-pity can take. Horrible early Tom Waits is one path; I took it myself once upon a time. Toussaint McCall's "Nothing Takes the Place of You" always works as well. Which reminds me: when Sinead's cover of "Nothing Compares 2 U" hit the top, was that the biggest, nationwide pity party ever?
In recent years, as middle age looms, Charlie Rich's "Life Has Its Little Ups and Downs" has taken over. I've stooped so low as to post the .mp3 myself, but enough about that.
Posted by JL | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 3:00 PM
Diss Morrissey, get BPhd masturbation talk. Do we need any more proof that the world is patently unfair?
Posted by ogmb | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 3:01 PM
"I've seen this happen in other people's lives/
And now, it's happening in mine."
That lyric, especially as it's sung, vindicates Morrissey. Case dismissed.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 3:03 PM
"You're the one for me, fatty
You're the one I really, really love
And I will stay
Promise you'll say
If I'm ever in your way
A-hey"
Charges refiled.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 3:15 PM
"I thought that if you had
An acoustic guitar
Then it meant that you were
A protest singer
Oh, I can smile about it now
But at the time it was terrible"
Defense rests.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 3:19 PM
"Ouija board, ouija board, ouija board
Would you work for me ?
I have got to get through
To a good friend
Well, she has now gone
From this unhappy planet
With all the carnivores
And the destructors of it."
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 3:23 PM
"A heartless hand on my shoulder
A push—and it's over
Alabaster crashes down
(Six months is a long time)
Tried living in the real world
Instead of a shell
But before I began . . .
I was bored before I even began"
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 3:25 PM
Oh, you silly old man
You silly old man
You're making a fool of yourself
So get off the stage
Posted by ogmb | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 3:26 PM
61: ?? I thought the whole point of Morrisey was sublimated masturbation. No?
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 3:28 PM
66: Okay, that's pretty good. But it really doesn't comepnsate for the horror of 65.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 3:30 PM
68: That's why you shouldn't reward apo for not getting it.
67 to 65.
Posted by ogmb | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 3:31 PM
you shouldn't reward apo
Too late.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 3:32 PM
Apo got no pictures. And I got my paper written. Which I care about a lot more than withholding fantasy material from men I've never actually met.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 3:33 PM
It all comes down to who you believe - me or the liberal blogosphere.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 3:35 PM
Various Unfogged commenters say these pictures are not the authentic face of BitchPhd masturbating. I wish I agreed with that. But, sadly, they are her very image today.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 3:37 PM
Ok, I call. Post them.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 3:39 PM
I thought the whole point of Morrisey was sublimated masturbation.
Morrissey also produces a hung jury.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 3:40 PM
Horrible early Tom Waits
Hey! There's no such thing!
(But in fact the moping in question was done to Rain Dogs, Franks Wild Years, and Big Time.)
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 3:42 PM
Be it recorded that I am currently listening to the Housemartins. Not moping, though. Procrastinating.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 3:43 PM
75: Okay, then.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 3:46 PM
Hey! There's no such thing!
Oy. All that fake Louis Armstrong-style singing, maudlin piano stuff. Horrible, horrible, horrible.
But in fact the moping in question was done to Rain Dogs, Franks Wild Years, and Big Time.
Well, those are better. At least Rain Dogs is, aside from a few songs ("Time" is unlistenable.) A couple of good songs on Swordfishtrombones as well. I was always put off by the way the vocals sound on Frank's Wild Year's, like they were recorded over a telephone.
You want the ultimate pity party, you gotta go country. Morrisey's got nothing on Merle Haggard.
Posted by JL | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 3:53 PM
Sorry, apo, that's not masturbating BitchPhD. You been had.
Posted by ogmb | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 3:53 PM
ogmb, I will not be swayed by your leftist moonbat resistance to plain facts. You're the same people who have been saying that Iraq is a quagmire for years now.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 3:55 PM
80: I'm torn between agreeing enthusiastically with the last paragraph, dissenting from your choice of exemplar (George Jones! Hank Williams!), and quietly tiptoeing away from the dangerous maniac who's only lukewarm about late-80s Tom Waits.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 4:00 PM
I call upon those who have met me to confirm or refute the validity of apo's pictures.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 4:06 PM
You're just another person in the world
You're just another fool with radical views
You're just another who has maddening views
You want to turn it on its head
By staying in bed !
Posted by ogmb | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 4:06 PM
When I went pity party over a break up, I started reading blogs. Morrissey would have been better.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 4:15 PM
83: Jones or Williams would do as well--I chose Merle because he's underrated as a purveyor of sorrowful navel-gazing. Also, I don't care for Jones that much, aside from a half-dozen songs. Though I must of those: they are maudlin and full of self-pity. They are magnificent!
I thought I was disparaging early to mid 1980's Waits, but I see that you are right. After that, I don't think I've cared for more than a song or two by him. If the Ramones covered it, it's ok, otherwise I don't want to hear it.
Also good for those trying to be alone and brave: Billy Bragg's Worker's Playtime.
Posted by JL | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 4:17 PM
If George Jones plays a pity party, Tammy Wynette hosts a full-blown condolence conference.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 4:22 PM
I love Waits, but he doesn't work as pity music for me.
Lambchop (particularly the 'Nixon' album), bits of Bjork (especially Vespertine) and Dusty Springfield (Dusty in Memphis) all = pity music for me.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 4:27 PM
Damon and Naomi's More Sad Hits is a great mope album.
And there's nothing like being just-friendsed by a girl you're really into, coming home, and putting on the record you bought a couple of days ago and haven't got around to listening yet, which happens to be In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 4:33 PM
If George Jones plays a pity party, Tammy Wynette hosts a full-blown condolence conference.
At which there's a plenary session on Lyle Lovett's rendition of "Stand By Your Man".
Posted by JL | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 4:36 PM
'In the Wee Small Hours...' is great.
Bits of Chet Baker Sings are also great for a melancholy 50s moment. Some of Curtis Mayfield's stuff with the Impressions also works.
Growing up I hated the Smiths but only by association -- the people who were huge Smiths fans were often wankers -- it was only later I got into them and while I love Marr's playing, he hasn't done anything really interesting since he stopped working with Morrisey.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 4:37 PM
currently listening to the Housemartins.
They are, annoyingly and inexplicably, not on iTunes in America. And apparently you cannot download music from other countries' iTunes. And all my Housemartins is on cassette or vinyl. Feh.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 4:38 PM
This is a CD of London O, Hull 4 (and if anyone can explain that thanks) I bought for $3 while on spring break in a city with better CD stores than Lubbock. Good stuff.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 4:42 PM
Gratuitously On Topic, though I liked the Housemartins and Fine Young Cannibals, I never heard any Smiths I liked.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 4:43 PM
Yeah, I know all of London 0 Hull 4 by heart.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 4:47 PM
Oh, I always thought London 0 Hull 4 represented a dream footie score.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 4:48 PM
’scuse me, “result”.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 4:50 PM
That sucks, Weiner.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 5:00 PM
95: So, basically, slol hates gay people.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 5:01 PM
Do you have any evidence that FYC and the Housemartins are not gay? Okay, what's-his-name did marry the blonde model-looking woman from television, but that doesn't prove anything.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 5:04 PM
Wait, what sucks? The Housemartins album does not suck!
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 5:04 PM
what's-his-name did marry the blonde model-looking woman from television
What I meant was, Norman “Fatboy Slim” Cook (formerly of The Housemartins) married Zoë Ball.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 5:07 PM
101: Indeed it doesn't. (Found that before 102 posted, ha!)
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 5:08 PM
99: Wait, I think I get it. In 90 "a couple of days ago" means a couple of days before the just-friendsing, which took place years and years ago. I am largely over it.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 5:12 PM
84: And nobody rises to deny.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 5:19 PM
Yeah, I'm thinking Weiner is really sucking here. Some friend you are, Weiner.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 5:24 PM
He's trying to help you maintain some semblance of anonymity through plausible deniability.
It's not nice to put your friends on the spot by asking them to lie for you.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 5:27 PM
You and I both know that you are so bullshitting this one.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 5:30 PM
I posted the pictures, yo.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 5:32 PM
Like I said.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 5:33 PM
apo: jebus. if we judge lyricists by their worst work instead of their best, who the hell is going to survive?
Posted by soubzriquet | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 5:33 PM
Great, Yahoo mail has crapped out. John Tingley, if you're around, you can email me instead on my gmail account: firstnamelastname@gmail.com.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 5:35 PM
Like I said.
The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 5:36 PM
Sorry, sorry.
*ahem*
That is definitely not bphd masturbating.
Her o-face has more of a clenched-teeth look.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 5:36 PM
The lady's honor has been publicly called into question. It's either protesting or challenging you to a duel, and I think the Mineshaft would be irked at me if I shot you.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 5:38 PM
Et tu, Weiner?
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 5:38 PM
That's not me on that billboard.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 5:39 PM
No, it's me. And you'll notice I'm wearing neither bowling shoes nor an ugly rain jacket.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 5:41 PM
There's only one way to settle this: an old-fashioned bake-off, just like in the Old West.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 5:43 PM
Okay, but LB is disqualified from judging, b/c she likes puffy American-style cake.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 5:45 PM
P/aul D/eignan will judge.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 5:49 PM
In that case, I highly recommend that no one else taste my enry.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 5:54 PM
Is that what the kids are calling it today?
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 5:56 PM
Entry. Meaning baked good. Meaning I intend to spit in it. Or worse.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 5:58 PM
I highly recommend that no one loans B their cheese grater.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 5:59 PM
I know I should get that joke, but I've forgotten what it alludes to.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 6:04 PM
what it alludes to
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 6:07 PM
Heh. Heh. Heh.
Actually, though, no need. I have a ready supply of mouse poop.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 6:09 PM
Somehow, it seems that would be less viscerally satisfying.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 6:14 PM
7: not that it's a great album, but I'm pretty sure it's intentional self-parody, btw....
Posted by Anonymous | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 6:23 PM
Yeah, but it wouldn't require me to dry and grate my own crap.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 6:29 PM
Morrissey's new album?
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 6:34 PM
Mozzer putting teh hate on Canada.
Posted by ogmb | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 6:34 PM
Man, I go away for however long I've been away and everyone's musical goes to hell.
1. I like the Smiths and you should too.
2. The dissonant part of Gillian Welch's "Time (the Revelator)" is great.
3. After hearing Buck Owens make fun of Johnny Cash on the radio driving to the airport yesterday (on a CD I just purchased at, of all places, the Downtown Music Gallery), I'm having trouble taking him very seriously. I know no one mentioned him.
The taste || of love is sweet
When hearts || like ours meet
I stole your wife and that's a fact
But she ain't no good so you can have her back.
4. The vocals on Franks Wild Years are occasionally annoying, but they're different from song to song, and the guitar solos on "Down in the Hole" makes up for everything you might dislike about the rest of the album (which, if you're right-minded, isn't very much). Additionally, his first album is good! I even like "Ol' 55".
Lauding Morrissey, whom I believe wrote most of the Smiths' songs.
Nice effort, but you want "who" here.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 6:58 PM
I notice, Ben, that you failed to address the most pressing issue in this thread. Hmph.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 7:01 PM
Man, I go away for however long I've been away and everyone's musical goes to hell.
I know, man, we've been having massive problems with production.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 7:01 PM
U;n really tied (witnses my typing here) and I didn't read the whole thing.
Also witness the absence of the word "taste" following the word "musical" in my post supra.
Posted by bwn qikdaib | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 7:04 PM
Too consistent to be believable.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 7:06 PM
Part of the typing thing was that my fingers were misaligned on the keyboard. And it's not so much tiredness as it is EYES HURT and I don't want to look at the glaring whiteness of the screen, but also tired. I hate air travel! I think I'll go lie down now.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 7:08 PM
It's 9 pm in New York, Ben is on spring break, and he's going to lie down.
Youth is wasted on the young.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 7:09 PM
Bwned!
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 7:10 PM
(142 was apropos of nothing. I just had to say it after 138.)
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 7:12 PM
133: `morrissey, you are the quarry', best he's done in ages.
Posted by soubzriquet | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 7:28 PM
I think I know which Pakistani village is my next destination...
(Apropos of nothing.)
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 7:45 PM
Dude! How the hell did that not get sent for moderation! I'm leaving it, though. It's awesome.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 7:52 PM
And also apropos of nothing, I think my fucking cubemate gave me her cold. Must! Not! Get! Sick!
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 7:55 PM
It did. I approved it.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 7:58 PM
And from that comment, "Major Qaiser Mustafa Butt" is one seriously great name.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 8:02 PM
For a second, I thought 148 meant that you approved my cubemate's germ warfare campaign, in which case I would have had to kick your ass. As long as you're just approving worthy comment spam, go ahead.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 8:04 PM
I don't get that comment spam: no links, no action plan, no request for money. Is he just a particularly aggressive village historian? Misguided minister of tourism?
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 8:11 PM
It's not clear what's going to snap first: the guy next to me, or the roll of microfilm he's struggling to read.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 8:23 PM
Major Qaiser Mustafa has record of Best Smasher of Asia,Zaman Butt has record of Best Buster of Asia.
They play some mean volleyball down there in Pakistan.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 8:27 PM
'morrissey, you are the quarry', best he's done in ages.
Really? Other than Irish Blood English Heart it bored me to tears. For me Southpaw Grammar, Maladjusted and Vauxhall and I rank among the best he's recorded, marred or marrless.
Posted by ogmb | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 8:33 PM
152: Microfilm so sucks. And yet I love it. Some kind of weird sublimated masochism, or something.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 9:19 PM
(apostropher Photoshop homework assignment: pls photoshop microfilm reader into first link of 79)
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 9:33 PM
I have just spent about twenty minutes ineffectually searching for a comment where I responded to a query from Drymala about HBO's "Big Love." Which is better, the MT or the Google site search, and why are neither of them working out for me?
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 9:42 PM
156: Okay.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 9:45 PM
I work in the microforms department of my school library (which is exactly as boring a job as it sounds) and my conclusion is that microfilm was a remarkable medium for the 1950s and it still is a remarkable medium for the 1950s.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 10:03 PM
LOL, she looks like she's in agony. Which is just about right.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 10:33 PM
155: B, I know what you mean, but it's hard to explain.
159: As it happens, what I've been doing is introducing the 1950s to the 21st century: I'm scanning the microfilm I want and burning the individual pages onto CDs. It's been tedious and slow (about 2 minutes per image, most of which time I spend sitting there as the scanner runs), but so mindless that I've been able to read
blogsarticles/books while I work. But I just learned today that the scanner can't handle the small print of newspapers, so it's back to the old school machines for me.Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 11:38 PM
My goal in life is to get all the microfilm I use up on the web.
Luckily other people, with lots of money, are doing most of that for me.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 11:42 PM
Well, certain time periods seem to be getting a lot of help from the digitizing projects, but as far as I know only some of the Congressional records I use have been put on the web. The main newspapers I need are too local to be a high priority for most people, and the same goes for the handwritten correspondence.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 11:52 PM
Ugh, what a pain in the ass. I feel for you.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 11:53 PM
157: The MT search for the keywords "jackmormon" and "polygamy" turned up what you're looking for, but google got me nowhere. It may be too recent for the index.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 03-27-06 11:55 PM
Thanks, eb! That was really driving me crazy.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 03-28-06 12:06 AM
Hey, I seem to have turned this thread into a pity party. Maybe I should now check out this "Morrissey" character everyone's been talking about.
(And thanks for the sympathy, B.)
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 03-28-06 12:07 AM
For a truly melancholy pity party you need Satie's Gymnopedies.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 03-28-06 12:12 AM
" London O, Hull 4 (and if anyone can explain that thanks) "
In London there are no better bands than the Housemartins, but in Hull there are 4.
( This is unlikely to have actually been the case)
Posted by dave heasman | Link to this comment | 03-28-06 8:50 AM
Art reviews from the Mineshaft:
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-28-06 10:14 AM
"I wear black on the outside
because black is how i feel on the inside"
is the single best Morrissey quote ever for taking the piss out of pretentious gits.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 03-28-06 12:12 PM