Things I don't hate

I seem to spend an inordinate amount of time bitching about the things I hate.  Like mayonnaise and Julia Roberts.  It's sort of who I am.  But today on the bus--where I overheard two dudes loudly going on and on and on about how much they hate Justin Bieber--I realized that that can be exhausting.  Who can hate Justin Bieber so much that they must angrily bitch and moan at 7:13 AM on a Friday when everyone else is patiently counting down the minutes until 5pm? 

As such, in celebration of it being Friday, I thought I would make a list of things that my stunningly sexy readership of 9 may think that I hate, but in actuality, don't bother me in the least:

1)  Bieber

Might as well start here.  I can't name or hum a single song by this kid.  I have no idea if he sucks musically or not.  All I'm going on here is what I hear people complaining about the guy.  Ok, so he has kind of douchey hair.  I'll give you that.  And he has more money than god.  But hell, he's just a kid that was thrust into a spectacularly successfully money making machine.

Can we blame him for that?  He's sort of like the next generation's version of Macaulay Culkin.  Sure, we may all remember Mac fondly now, but that's revisionist history.  There was a swift and brutal backlash against Macaulay Culkin back in the day that abruptly pushed him into an early retirement.  It's very easy to forget how much people hated that kid for a while.  So, Mac relaxed for a couple years, divorced his parents, slept with Michael Jackson, got married, got divorced, laid low and then eventually came back as an indie-movie darling and I think we can all agree, he's sort of awesome now:

God, I hope that picture isn't photoshopped

Point is, yes, Bieber is over-exposed and has that hair but it wouldn't surprise me if he either went the Mac route or the Timberlake route and remade his career on down the road.  I hated Justin Timberlake for a while...c'mon, the dude was in 'NSYNCH (did I get that right? I refuse to google it) but through a series of SNL appearances, that fun Pepsi commercial where he was killed by a big screen TV, "Tit-Gate" at the Superbowl, and some pretty good roles in the occasional movie, he's made my short list of dudes I'd probably have to set aside my heterosexuality and bang given the opportunity.  I can "not hate" Bieber and at the same time hope to god he never makes that list too, right?  I better move on.

2)  Rebecca Black

This is one that I don't get at all.  Sure, her song "Friday" was not very good.  Let's get that out of the way right now.  But is it the worst song every released?  Hell no.  I mean, the Black Eyed Peas shit out a worse song 8 or 9 times on their average album.  Bob Dylan recorded entire albums on auto-pilot that were worse than "Friday".  I can even think of a few Beatles songs that are worse: "Birthday", "The Long and Winding Road", "Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da" and "Michelle", just to name a few.  

I really don't understand what the spite and fury is all about.  What we have here is a 14 year old girl whose parents paid for a music video to be made of a song the girl didn't even write.  The lyrics speak about the average, every-day "problems" of a teenage girl, not about Nancy Pelosi and John Boehner having a dirty three-way with the Declaration of Independence.  Where is the controversy?  "Friday" is the definition of innocuous. 

And yet, because of this song, the girl--a freaking teenage girl--received death threats.  What?  Why?  I don't get it.  I hope she makes a shitload of money, does Bieber and writes a hilarious book someday.  The ridicule she received was not at all equal to the annoying qualities of the song. 


3)  Mondays

For just about forever, Sunday has been my favorite day of the week.  See, on Friday and Saturday, we're supposed to act and behave as functional human beings.  We go out, have drinks, mix in a dinner, run errands, visit people and generally better ourselves.  Sunday?  I consider it a loss if I change my underwear.  Sundays are all about sitting on the couch, watching football and movies, playing Nintendo and not showering.  Sunday is the perfect bridge to Monday.

If you can't deal with a Monday, then you didn't do Sunday right.  

While I don't hate Mondays, I do think that these days they are rather sad and bittersweet.  One one hand, I have to drag my fat ass out of bed, take the bus-to-the-train-to-the-bus in 40 degree weather all to help grown men masturbate.  On the other hand, I won't have to worry about that commute much longer.

Sigh.

4)  Jesus Christ

Despite what you may believe after a few of my posts these last few days, I gots nothing against the King of Kings.  Honestly?  Jesus seemed like a cool dude.  While I may not believe that he was the son of God, I do think he was a prophet of sorts and pushed a message of love that people these days really, really seem to ignore.  It's hardly his fault that millions of people have been killed in his name.  And if he's watching us today, he's probably cursing Republicans right now, saying things like "WTF?  I never said word-fucking-one about gays." or "Help the poor!  Help them!  Remember?  Love!?  I healed lepers!  You can't help a cancer-ridden single mother of 3 with her hospital bills!  Christ!"

What did Gandhi say?  "I like your Christ.  I do not like your Christians."  That seems about right.

************

Thus concludes the only blog you will likely ever read where JC, Beiber and Rebecca Black have something in common.  Happy Friday!

Wait, didn't R.E.M. break up, like, 5 years ago?

Ok, ok.  That was a cheap shot.  From what I hear, they've released some amazing albums these last few years but anytime I hear some critic wet their pants and gush about R.E.M.'s newest, excellent album and then never, ever hear a listenable song on the radio (the radio!  Remember that?), I'm suspect of the quality of that effort. 

Indeed, R.E.M. broke up today.  As arguably one of the most important bands ever, they deserve all the kudos and sad goodbyes us fans can give them.  However, in my opinion, they've been out of the game for years.  In all of the albums since their last radio album, 1994's Monster...wait...they released six albums since Monster?  Six? Seriously?  New Adventures in Hi-Fi, Up, Reveal, Around the Sun, Accelerate and Collapse into Now.  Huh.  Who knew?

Where was I?  Ah, yes.  All of those albums (Six?!?!) were released to critical acclaim but I dunno...they just don't do anything for me.  My buddy Marc insists that "New Adventures" is their best album and also insists that the next few are really good too.  As I've always said, everybody is entitled to their opinion, even if that opinion is wrong. 

Marc and I used to have a joke about Paul Simon:  He could take a dump in a box, record the sound and win a Grammy.  I've felt the same way about R.E.M. these last few years.  Like critics wanted and needed the albums to be better than they actually were.  I've been guilty of that.  When Pearl Jam released that comeback album of theirs a few years ago, I listened to it and told people for a while that the Jam was back!  Woot!  Only after listening to it a few more times, I realized that while I wanted it to be great, I didn't actually feel it was.  Were critics thinking the same thing about R.E.M.?  Maybe.  And maybe Michael Stipe had incriminating pictures of every critic in the goddamned world. 

That is not to say that I am not a fan.  I loved, LOVED R.E.M in their heyday.  As a matter of fact, when I got my first CD player way back on Christmas day in 1990, my Brother gifted me my corresponding first CD:  R.E.M.'s Reckoning.  I wore that disc out.  Granted, it was the only CD I owned for a few weeks but man, I loved it.  I snapped up their back catalog--"It's the End of the World as We Know It" worked it's way into my life during this period--and I eagerly awaited the release of each new record.  Fortunately, my discovery of the band was right in their creative and commercial wheelhouse:  Out of Time and Automatic for the People would be the rewards for my devoted fandom.  When Monster came out in high school, I easily peaked as a fan.  Not only did R.E.M. finally release an album that rocked, I decided to dump by obsessive high school girlfriend at their concert at the World Music Theater when I was forced to miss the first couple of songs because she refused to go to the bathroom by herself.  Thanks Mike, Mike, Bill and Peter!

A few years ago, I had just gotten paid and was spending a Thursday night drinking wine by myself and rocking out to a 90's playlist I had created.  R.E.M. stuff kept coming up over and over again so I grabbed my laptop and drunkenly hopped on Amazon.com.  Never a good thing.  I was (barely) cognizant of Marc's advice that the new albums were good so I decided to buy them.  In addition, many of my older R.E.M. albums were nicked to shit or just plain lost after spending 6 years in Tulsa with me.  So, I purchased their entire catalog.  Since I was drunk, I even bought a few albums twice (damn you Golden Gate wine!).  I spent the next few weeks gleefully revisiting some old classics--their I.R.S. stuff holds up surprisingly well 25 years later--and trying to like their newer efforts.  I continued to not like these efforts.

Maybe it's time to revisit their more recent works.  After all, I am the guy that finally admitted Paul McCartney was a fairly important member of The Beatles.  It's only fair that I offer the same courtesy to another of my all time favorite bands. 

Yes.  It is time to revisit the newer albums.  It's the least I could do, if only to honor a newly dead, once great band.

I'll be the first to admit it...

...I may have been a bit tough on Paul McCartney all these years.

You see, as a Beatles fan, I fall more in to the "John" group than the "Weenie Paul" group.  John was always the rocker of the two; Paul always seemed more rigid, more structured.  Even when Paul was trying to rock, it always seemed like he was doing just that: trying, and just a little too hard.  Rocking came naturally for John. 

But I have to give credit where credit is due:  Paul is pretty good.  And that hurts to say.

As my loyal readership of 9 can attest, I hold silly grudges for ridiculous amounts of time.  Like when that stoner sandwich artist yelled at me at Jimmy Johns 6 years ago...that whole organization can go to hell.  I'm not entirely sure when my grudge against Paul took hold but I do know that it was some point in my childhood.  I guess it all comes back to the grade school lunchroom mentality: you have to pick an absolute favorite and stick with it through hell and back.  It's why I can still convince myself that Carlton Fisk was a better baseball player than Ryne Sandberg even though my brain tells me otherwise.

To be clear, Paul McCartney is not better than John Lennon.  I am willing, however, to say that Paul was a fairly important member of The Beatles.  I will even go as far to say that he is one of the top two most important members of The Beatles.  He may have even been more talented.  Whatever.  He'll just never be as cool.

All of this soul searching happened because I was lucky enough to attend the Paul McCartney concert last night at Wrigley Field with my wife and my...let me get this right: Step-Mother-in-Law?  Is that a thing?  Krishni's step-mother.  Holly Hannah was that a good show! 

He ripped through 5 decades of music, sticking mostly to the Beatles (Yay!) while mixing in some Wings songs (Boooo!) and some more recent stuff (Meh).  His 37 (!) song set list, by the numbers:

Beatles Songs:  23
Good Beatles Songs:  18
Wings Songs:  8
Good Wings Songs:  1
Middle-aged, shrieking women in attendance:  2,456,890 (citation needed)

It was an excellent show.  He paid nice tributes to John, George and Jimi Hendrix and, oddly, he never once mentioned the name "Ringo".  He looked good for his age (69):

And was ably backed by a pretty good touring band.  Also, I'm pretty sure his guitarist was named "Larry Busey":

Incidentally, that drummer you see in the background is named Abe Laboriel, Jr. and he is awesome.  I never thought you could find a drummer goofier than Ringo but that guy did it all.  Super-fun drummer with unique fills, made orgasm faces while he, uh, beat the skins, and at one point, during the "Dance Tonight" number, stood up behind Paul and did the Macarena.  I want to get hammered with this guy. 

********************

I've always thought that John was the more important Beatle at the beginning but Paul was the dominant one at the end.  Yoko gets an unfair amount of blame for breaking up The Beatles because what it really came down to was two otherworldly talents and egos colliding, each trying to mold and shape the band into wildly different forms.  When the Beatles broke up, there was so much animosity within the band I figured everyone just kind of hated each other for a long time afterwards.  I was shocked to learn only recently that John and Paul jammed quite a bit together after the break-up.  In fact, they were watching Saturday Night Live together in 1976 when Lorne Michaels famously offered The Beatles a check for $3,000 to get back together on the show ("You divide it up any way you want. If you want to give less to Ringo, that's up to you.")

Obviously, time heals all wounds.  Last night at Wrigley, Paul mugged for the crowd an awful lot.  Krishni called it some serious "Rex Manning-Style" preening.

 Paul's Brother from another Mother

Maybe Paul has earned that type of mugging.  He is the only living Beatle that, you know, wrote songs and stuff*.  And last night his tributes to John and George were lovely.  I can confidently say that Paul's public persona is no longer that of the micromanaging asshole. 

That's a compliment, right?

*Yes, yes, I know Ringo wrote two songs.  But one was Octopus's Garden and the other can only be described as a "ho-down" song.  Yee-ha. 

********************

If you care, you can find the entire set list here. 

Tunes

These last few months have been a bit tough on me...not gonna lie.  Between the death of my epic Godfather and the resulting legal battle and the shockingly rapid decline in my Mother's health, it's been hard.  Plus, my truck died. 

Pictured here, apparently on its birthday.

In a strange sort of way though, it's been...well, not fun, but "fun in a reminiscing sort of way".  You see, I've been going through old pictures, memory boxes, and scrap books and just plain ol' remembering stuff from my past.  That's been the fun part.  My family has spent hours drinking wine and laughing as we told ancient, repeated stories and played with the newest generation of the Jacklich clan. Old, dear friends have contacted me while new friends have bought me surprisingly few drinks (ahem).  The reasons for trips down memory lane are sometimes terrible, but the road itself is often paved with smiles.

And yes, that was my attempt to write the worst/cheesiest line possible as a segue from the bummers of my life to today's fun topic:  tunes.

See, after the U2 concert, I've revisited some older and sentimental favorites.  I've listened to albums I haven't listed to in years.  To this day, there are certain songs or albums that can transport me back in time to the very moment I became attached to them; I don't think I'm alone with this power.  For instance: I can still smell my old bedroom and tell you exactly what level of Sonic The Hedgehog 2 I was playing the 1st time I cranked "It Smells like Teen Spirit".  I can describe to you my sister Peggy's ceiling and exactly how the post-it notes were arranged on her mirror whenever I hear the chime of the clocks in "Time" by Pink Floyd.  I can smell the fallen leaves in my back yard and feel the crisp snap of a late October wind whenever "Hey Jealousy" pops on WXRT.

Music is funny like that. 

But this has also given me an opportunity to question some of my more, um, questionable tastes in music over the years.  About a year ago, I bought a new computer which enabled me to digitize my entire music collection.  And just a few days ago, I moved that entire library over to my iPhone.  As of now, I carry every CD I own in the single coolest piece of technology I've ever encountered.  In his wildest dreams, 12 year-old Mike Jacklich could never have pictured a device that would hold 200 CDs, 5 phone numbers and could conjure photos of girls boobs whenever he wished. 

Because I made the command decision to put everything I own onto the iPhone, I can now play Def Leopard's Adrenalize whenever I never want.  Def Leopard, as many of you know, isn't just the best punch line of any joke, ever ("What has 9 arms and sucks?"):  they're also the worst band in the history of the world, non-Metallica division. 

I can also play the other 14 songs off of "Steppenwolf's 16 Greatest Hits".  I can crank all of REM's questionable albums since Monster.  Whenever I feel the itch, I can play the B-52's "Hot Pants Explosion".

It was a real thing.

Look, I never claimed to be cool.  In fact, I know I'm not.  Hell, my 1st concert ever was New Kids on the Block at the Rosemont Horizon (my second concert, however, was the U2 Zoo TV Tour which was the lie I used to tell people whenever I was asked my what my 1st concert was.  This was before I realized how hilarious it was that I heard "Please Don't Go Girl" before I heard any other live stadium music). 

 Indeed, Donnie; Drugs do suck.  Was I on any?

I did get one or two things right.  I took most of my early rock n' roll influence from my older brother Don.  Donny introduced me to the Beatles at a very early age and I can still remember the violent arguments I would have at the 7th grade lunch table over who was better, The Beatles or Poison?

 I win, John Schmadeke.