Brian Frank » humour

Favourite Rainy-Day Albums of the 00′s

Brian — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 21:16:45 +0000

Being that it’s a rainy day where I am right now and I’ve been meaning to do a few “Best of the 00′s” lists, when I found myself making a playlist of climate-appropriate musical selections it seemed like a good chance to collect some impressions.

Starting with Badly Drawn Boy‘s Hour of the Bewilderbeast in 2000 — winner of the decade’s first Mercury Prize. It opens low-yet-still-warm with cello and french horn on “The Shining.” Conversely, “Once Around the Block” is a jaunty-yet-genuine picker-upper.

Then I’ve got Sparklehorse in 2001 with It’s a Wonderful Life. The langorous title track [don't ask me about that fan-made YouTube vid] always bothered me by seeming to try too hard at nothingness, but the damn thing stuck in my head and would come back sometimes a year since I’d heard it. A couple of rockers, “Piano Fire” and “King of Nails,” kept me interested enough early-on.

Then I’m going to go with South‘s From Here on In, released in the UK in 2001. I loved this album from start to finish — not so much as an all-around great album, but for certain times, i.e., rainy days, it suited me perfectly. Whenever I put this on, inevitably, by the time it finishes I find I’ve lost track of time (flow!). I don’t know anyone else who liked it, nor did I make any effort to introduce anyone to it — especially not after American Eagle adopted “Broken Head” for their massively annoying advertising campaign (and I definitely kept it to myself after The O.C. got ahold of another one).

Fortunately for that didn’t happen with The Last Broadcast, released in 2002 by Doves (more Brits). I think this is the strongest album of all of these picks so far — not necessarily my favourite, but the best I’ve listed so far — and critics largely agreed… Oops, spoke too soon about The O.C. – looks like “Caught By the River” was the show’s “best music moment #37.”

I think I might be showing my age by assuming there’s a stigma attached to a song that’s featured on a show like The O.C. There was a time when that meant a song had officially ceased being cool, now TV music directors (whether for shows or advertisers) have displaced radio DJs and programming directors as arbiters of cool.

Either way, I started losing interest and my tastes sort of settled while I tried figuring out what “these kids these days” are up to.

Next up is 2004′s Love is Hell, by Ryan Adams. I only just started listening to this a couple of years ago, even though I already liked Adams in theory and I loved Gold and almost put it on this list (but it’s more break-up blue than rainy-day blue). Since then this has remained one of my favourites, and I certainly think it’s the best on this list. I’m not even a huge fan of “Wonderwall” [insert requisite O.C clip which I just found and will add no comment to].”

Out of what passes for me as “recent,” I’m a fan of Bon Iver‘s For Emma, Forever Ago . I thought the ”Skinny Love” performance on Letterman was pretty awesome; then his Black Cab Session with “Creature Fear“ is what finally sold me.

The only other recent ones I can think of are maybe Band of Horses, who I’ve come to really late and haven’t fully decided on yet. Seems like I should mention Wilco too — if only because I know the Amazon and Last.fm recommendo-bots would… And I’m tempted to say Radiohead too, but I think I’ll save them for a “Late-Night Reflection Albums” post or something.

Another honourable mention goes to PJ Harvey‘s Stories of the City, Stories of the Sea, which I stumbled on late and was only just now reminded of when a few dots in this post started to connect (won Mercury Prize, she did guest-vocals for Sparklehorse, and her album had Tom Yorke as a guest). It’s more ’between-moods’ than ‘rainy-day.’ There’s some haunting sort of stuff but there are also one or two that rock even harder than any of these dudes.

After all, the point of rainy-day music isn’t to stay in a rainy-day mood forever.

[Final note: I know there are a lot I should've mentioned -- mostly in my 2004 - 2007 gap of pop culture apathy. These are my own picks, I welcome yours [also I can tell you I'm already kicking myself for forgetting a couple].]

Irregardless… It’s a Word

Brian — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 15:09:36 +0000

Continued from Insignificant Verbiage.

It’s been fun the last few days, taking the position in a running office argument that “irregardless” is a word.

I’m well aware that it’s ridiculous. That’s precisely why it’s so much fun. When I hear people complaining in an exaggerated way — e.g. “Ughh, I hhhate when people say that!” — my tease reflex gets twitchy.

Besides, I have an even bigger gripe with the argument that something is “not a word.”

Something like “irregardless” isn’t a very accurate, respectable, or attractive word, but it’s still a unit of language and it does convey meaning — albeit rather sloppily — so it’s still a word.

More importantly, language evolves, and if we’re only ever allowed to use words that have already been established and certified by then we’ll quickly run out of names and descriptions for our constantly evolving circumstances.

It’s instructive that spellcheckers continue to highlight “blog” as a spelling mistake –amusingly, even spellcheckers built into blogging platforms.

I rely on a lot of words that didn’t exist a few years ago; I can’t communicate my ideas (therefore I can’t communicate at all) without them.

On a more basic level, making up neologisms — creating things — is funner than merely breaking the rules.

Insignificant Verbiage

Brian — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 04:39:55 +0000

Robert Fulford’s recent column addresses a favourite topic, irritating phrases:

A boss I endured in my youth told me early in our relationship that he favoured “forward planning.” His voice spoke of stern commitment to management principles. Afflicted as I was by the frightened politeness of the young, I lacked the nerve to say that I found it more useful to practise backward planning. Up to this moment, the word “forward” remains a favourite of those who dream of speaking in impressive sentences. In the last 10 years or so, “going forward” has become a pestilence; there are those who can’t speak of the future without using it. David Beckham, asked about some possible turn in his career, replied: “Going forward, who knows?”

I don’t mind “going forward” as long as it refers to action — i.e. actually going somewhere. You can say, “we’re going forward with the proposal,” but in Beckham’s phrase, for example, “going forward” doesn’t change the meaning: “Going forward, Who knows?”

Which isn’t to say I don’t use it too, sometimes.

Just as face-to-face communication relies on non-verbal cues, effective collaboration often requires insignificant verbiage. It’s like shaking hands: it doesn’t have to be logical; it can still be meaningful and appropriate — not to mention expected and required.

A couple of years ago I failed to appreciate this. I tried to be a hardassed linguistic self-disciplinarian. I wrote as if an especially persistent newspaper editor or someone like Fulford (here’s more and more) or Jacques Barzun was reading over my shoulder.

Sometimes I still write like that, when required — and when I don’t mind if nobody reads it — but I’ve also learned to embrace hollow, hackneyed phrases and clichés for the sake of recognition and feel.

They’re like innocent winks and nods we give each other in-person. Sometimes words and phrases are small gestures by which we relate — simply reminders of the page we’re all on — irregardless* of special significance.

*To be continued…

(via aldaily)

So I’m at the Laundry Cafe…

Brian — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 03:35:40 +0000

And I’m loading my laundry into two machines, using my customary system of “lights & darks” to decide which-goes-with-what — because I’ll be damned if I’m burning through, like, 1000 quarters to split everything into tiny loads of whites, colours, delicates, etc. I tend to only buy neutrally-inclined colours anyways: your beiges, your greys, and your off-whites, a lot of light-blues, etc.

Of course, as I’m doing that I’m scoping tonight’s scene, looking to see if my favourite laundromat characters are here:

a handful of women who never stop working the whole time (do they ever just let the machines do the work? where do all those clothes come from anyways? where do they go?)
the upper-middle-aged guy who just lingers, apparently in no rush to get back home to his non-life
the kid who seems to teleport all over the premises, not really belonging to any parent in particular
the girl who tells her trying-to-be-helpful-but-has-no-idea-what-he’s-doing boyfriend to stay out of her way and go play video games
the relatively successful-looking dude — I imagine maybe his own washer and dryer are broken — out of his element, sitting on the wooden bench, vigorously typing something into his Blackberry as he checks out the milieu…

Hmmm, something is oddly familiar about that last guy tonight…

I don’t think much of it. I go grab a seat, pull out my MacBook and start trying to catch up on my reading. Of course, I’m also checking TweetDeck once-in-awhile, but somehow I missed this:

Bad news: dryer stopped drying. Worse: had to buy a new set (red!) Hanging at the Internet/Laundry Cafe with my wife. Quite the adventure!

But I did catch the followup:

Scene from a laundromat. This could be my fave piece of writing on a while: http://viigo.im/0dCE

I dare say it is quite entertaining. I always like Carmi’s longer posts; I wish he’d write more of them. He describes the scene it pretty well – with a photographer’s eye — far more artfully than I did:

The scene: a wooden bench at the Laundry Cafe here in London…

I must admit I’m enjoying being here. There’s a cross section of humanity that provides endless oppurtinity to observe – the middle-aged guy who played pinball until the machine went dark, the near-shaven-headed dude in cargo shorts who can’t tell the difference between whites and colors, the bored 12-year-old boy whose scowling, cornerback-esque mother dragged him here against his will, the modern-day Cheech and Chong wannabes who seem fascinated by the unique facets on a Canadian quarter coin, the sad-faced, long-haired woman using the payphone who doesn’t seem to have smiled in years, who wears a windbreaker on a warm, humid night and who wears a weight on her shoulders that can’t be seen, but can be clearly felt.

This is quite honestly the funniest — and coolest — thing to happen to me in a while. I did have some trouble deciding whether (or rather, how) to introduce myself.

In the end I slipped out like a blogger in the night, running home with my box of laundry — a lot cleaner, a little more same-coloured than before — and my story… leaving behind Cheech & Chong, and Carmi with his wife on their mundane adventure — and the most gigantic pile of clothes I’ve ever seen!

Opinion-Free July

Brian — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 13:23:42 +0000

Partially inspired by this post at Rockinon, I’m going to go opinion-free for the rest of July.

I was working on a follow-up to the Gladwell post, and after several versions I really didn’t like what I was writing, nor did I like myself very much for writing it.

And what would blogging be without self-love?

If you aren’t falling in love with yourself via your own words, then you’re not blogging… ;)

Anyways, I’m going to give myself a couple of loopholes.

The first is that I have an opinion-oriented piece about London’s economic future that has been germinating for a couple of weeks. I might do something on that, allowing myself the exception by saying, “but I thought of it before July, so technically…”

The second loophole is that if anything crazy happens — like an election — I’m duty-bound to blog myself into a ranting fury.

And I’ll add a third: sometimes a little opinion is needed for framing and context, e.g., when you share a link it’s helpful to explain why you shared it, what you think of it, where it fits into your life and work, how you’d improve on it, etc.

I’ll be trying to keep that up, daily, at Open/Conceptual.

Information Food Groups

Brian — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:49:34 +0000

I left a comment on this post at the LFPress Editor’s Blog about the traffic disparity between Tori Stafford-related livestreams (up to over 5,000 viewers) and yesterday’s Beyond the Crisis panel (55 viewers — it would have been 56 if I didn’t have to work).

By chance, a food metaphor popped into my head: some news stories are high in refined sugar and starch, giving readers and viewers a big kick that wears off fast, which generates cravings for another dose and eventually turns into a series of highs, with nothing actually developed for the reader — nothing learned, nothing they can use creatively.

The Stafford coverage doesn’t exactly fit that. I wouldn’t say it is all “empty calories” because it is a real tragedy. I’d put it somewhere in the fruits and vegetables category.

Fruits and vegetables are where we get most of our vitamins and fibre. These are the real news stories — some sweet, some bitter or sour — that digest fast (some go right through) and keep our energy up. In short, daily news keeps us vital and healthy.

Something to be careful of, though, is some of the juiciest stories turn out to be “fruit drink” — nothing but the empty calories of gossip, or highly refined press release journalism from the entertainment world.

Fruit and vegetables aren’t enough. We we need protein to regulate our blood sugar levels and to build muscle. It also burns a lot of calories to digest, and sits heavy. The high protein coverage is mostly in-depth analysis of economic and political matters. Watch out though, a lot of opinion can be pretty fatty and greasy — and the half-cooked stuff can make you seriously sick.

Here are a couple of analogies to get things started (I want to add some but have to go to work now):

Tori Stafford — bananas: a lot of vitamins and fibre, and there’s always a ton of it, but it can be hard to find coverage that isn’t either green and starchy or brown and mushy.

Krugman vs. Ferguson — liver and onions: an acquired taste, puts hair on your chest

“To the entire staff of brianfrank.ca,”

Brian — Mon, 18 May 2009 14:34:20 +0000

We got this on Saturday:

To the entire staff of brianfrank.ca,

Folks, you’re doing a great job. We aren’t quite where we need to be yet but we’re getting there. You deserve a weekend off — not this one, and not the next either — maybe some time in August — definitely at least by the fall, or later — by winter hopefully, by the end of the year — if not this year then in 2010 for sure, after the Olympics.

In the mean time we will be starting work sooner and finishing later. We are also increasing the per-hour productivity quota.

Just a few more things:

We’re raising the bar on excellence — both in terms of quantity and quality. Not only must you produce more, we also expect you to produce better. As an incentive, the top 90% of performers each month will be generously awarded continued employment here.

I want to emphasize quality (of course, without de-emphasizing quantity). There have been far too many errors lately. We seem to be getting sloppier. Last month I saw a “reining” that should have been “reigning.” That is unacceptable. This is not Twitter.

Speaking of which…

I’m having legal draft a social media policy. This publication fully endorses the use of Twitter, Facebook, etc, as long as those platforms are used in a way that conveys no personality and no information. Use your judgement. I trust you.

Also on the topic of legalities, while we continue to crack down on what we let out, we are loosening up on what you may bring in. Feel free to borrow an entire paragraph from a blog. Nobody really reads them anyways.

Finally, in order to help everyone meet your higher quotas the company will provide energy drinks and high-sugar snacks, at a cost of 10% above retail. The price is more than fair considering you are not allowed to bring your own items or leave the premises during work hours: according to simple economics we could easily charge 75 – 100% above retail.

Hope everyone has a great weekend! Don’t forget to take advantage of the sunny weather during your lunch hour.

Yours professionally,

Me

P.S. I have discontinued our contract with the janitorial services company, so don’t forget to take care of your own garbage and wipe down your area at the end of the day. Going forward you will also take turns cleaning the washroom. Note these responsibilities must be done within the time you are already paid for and will not affect your work quotas in any way.

P.P.S Regarding satire and posts that attempt to use absurd humour: don’t. Just don’t do them. They are not funny and they diminish the brand. Try doing some real reporting something useful instead.

London’s Social Media Mafia: Behind the Silicon Curtain

Brian — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 06:04:56 +0000

Real reporters managed to infiltrate the group and capture these startling images.

The cover came off London Ontario’s seedy social media underworld last weekend as key players met openly in what appears to be a brazen attempt to gain legitimacy and leverage into more lucrative rackets.

Most interesting to authorities is the degree of collusion between these ambitious underground up-and-comers (whom some people have argued are utterly without morals) with more established, “legitimate” players in the mainstream media.

Representatives from local newspaper and radio organizations attended meetings and even led the discussion at one point (in menacing fashion).

This photograph all but confirms suspicions that have been swirling for months: Dan Brown, of the London Free Press, in a snake-pit full ruthless bloggers and podcasters, is “one of them.”

How deep does this conspiracy go?

Not that Brown was hiding anything. He disclosed his role to readers of his own blog on Monday. In fact, he is the first to go on record admitting there is an active “blogger mafia” operating in London Ontario.

Clearly this has been developing out of sight for some time.

In the video below you can watch a surveillance team document the proceedings, unbeknownst to the goddamned filthy bloggers, in one of those “secret hallways” normally used by hotel employees to make unauthorized celebrity sex tapes. Note the narc at the end looking at a chart of the organization’s hierarchy:

So how much do we know about London’s social media mafia?

It’s difficult to get a true sense of its composition and proportions. LoSoMeMa operates as a very open, “flat” organization with fuzzy, dynamic boundaries. Making matters worse, LoSoMeMa is constantly evolving and adopting to new practices and technologies.

We do know the most public face of the group: the blogfather, Bill Deys. However, some observers wonder exactly how much control is wielded by this man, the group’s reining elder, Greg Fowler, aka fowgre operating at arms-length under the banner of From My Bottom Step.

Many members openly use their real names; some use aliases. Since the weekend authorities have pored over hours of surveillance footage to attempt to identify “No-Pants Kevin,” “Erica Loudshoes” (aka “Erica Blonde”), “PluggedIn Nick” (aka “Headphonesonly”), “Phronk,” “Karolijn,” and “Titus Ferguson.”

There are still a lot of big question marks. Of foremost concern is the cast of characters who travelled from neighbouring environs along with a handful of higher-profile social media mavens from Toronto. What’s their role? Is LoSoMeMa run locally, or does it take its marching orders from higher-up — from William Spaetzel perhaps — or even as far up as Silicon Valley?

And more vexingly, why all the interest in the East Village? Are they behind the drug- and sex-trade in the area — intentionally driving-down property values for a half-century so they can buy up all the land at deflated prices and develop it into a massive hotel-casino? Or are they simply going to strip-mine it for its wealth of heritage artifacts, copper wire, and gravel?

Most of it remains to be seen.

As pieces of the puzzle come together one-by-one (e.g. the identity of this shadowy figure), the public will slowly get to know this group and what they represent — for better or worse.

One thing is absolutely certain: they aren’t going away — not anytime soon.

Brian Frank » humour

Favourite Rainy-Day Albums of the 00′s

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Irregardless… It’s a Word

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So I’m at the Laundry Cafe…

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“To the entire staff of brianfrank.ca,”

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