Nomi removes her top. She is topless.
1. First off, I have to report on last night's activities. After a depressing day during which a former best friend proved himself to be a craven, cowardly asshole (the worst kind of downer, shaking one's faith in humanity) I was despairing ever laughing again. Nevertheless, we headed, in the company of fellow ex-pat Darren Roark, to the Upright Citizens Brigade theater to see Showgirls: The Best Movie Ever Made. Ever. It's billed as a "dramatic reading" of Joe Esterhasz' script, which is so unbelievably, monumentally, legendarily awful it veers into genius territory. The stage directions are read absolutely verbatim ( ex: Esterhasz has a tendency to overexplain the bare tits of the main character: "Nomi removes her top. SHE IS TOPLESS.") and the parts are read either as broad caricature or deadly serious. And "Mr. Esterhasz" himself is there to explain the film and talk about how he sucked Andrea Dworkin's dick. I'm not sure I've ever laughed harder. Must see.
Best of all, we got to meet SNL's gorgeous Casey Wilson and Rob Corddry, formerly of the Daily Show and most recently of "What Happens In Vegas," a movie which, despite my personal loathing of the rom-com genre, charmed the shit out of me, partly 'cause of the script and partly because of the riotous chemistry between Corddry and the astonishing Lake Bell. Awesome.
2. Okay. This blog has always been, if nothing else, completely honest. Right? I've never lied to you, I lay bare my soul even when it hurts. And there's something I need to confess to you. Something that's been plaguing my life for years, and something which I've tried depserately to hide.
That is this: I can't bring myself to hate Coldplay.
God, it tortures me! My forebrain knows they write shitty, overdramatic, cliche-ridden songs. My forebrain knows that they're pompous, pretentious assholes who think they're the fucking second coming and so fucking aren't. My forebrain keeps telling me that every fiber of my being should be dedicated to loathing these chumps because that's the kind of music that the world should loathe.
And then? One of their songs comes on the radio and my fucking hindbrain goes "Hey, good song!" and turns up the radio and next thing I know I'm singing along to "Clocks" or that new song that isn't even a song from their new album which is called something like "La Vida Loca." And then my forebrain notices, shudders in abject horror, and turns the radio to an AC/DC song in an attempt to purge the horror.
I refuse to admit that the reason I can't bring myself to hate them is that they're actually not as bad as everybody seems to think they are and that, like U2, their pomposity frequently overshadows their knack for writing catchy melodies that stick in your head. Even though, I dunno, it's kind of true.
God, I'm so ashamed. I'm turning in my Pitchfork Media Music Snob Club Membership Card and retiring to a monastery in the mountains of Greece to get away from this. I need to find myself. Farewell.
12 comments:
Ha! I can't bring myself to fully hate Coldplay either. When I hear "Clocks" I just reactively squeal, "I LOVE this song!" and then die from embarrassment. And Casey Wilson was a classmate of mine from UCB in NYC! Oh the world is small...
I can't quite wrap my brain around the equation of if Coldplay is good and also pompous or if it's all some trick myself. And then I wonder why I have no problem rationalizing the stuff I like that is total utter crap with a pop hook. Seriously, I will sing along with Kelly Clarkson without remorse, but I cringe about liking Coldplay?
The craven coward thing when it happens, really sucks. I'm glad you had Showgirls to comfort you.
Caesy Wilson is one of my favorite people she's one of the nicest sweetest girls ever. I was a big fan of all the work she did with Paul Rust and Charlyne at the UCBT.
And, umm, it's weird that you mentioned Coldplay, because I've been playing my entire coldplay catalog at work today. I'm not ashamed. They've been one of my favorite bands since I was 15. Parachutes is one of my fav albums.
I know. This makes me gay.
Can I set up a tent in your camp?
I love "Clocks" mostly for nostalgia's sake, but the rest of their 'hits' are so inoffensive that at some point I began to not turn off the radio when they came on. Or seeking them out for download. Or something like that. Errrr.
I've never seen or read an interview with Chris Martin, or any of the other nameless fellows in the band, so it's news to me that they have a reputation of being pompous. From what I've seen of some other stuff Chris Martin has been involved in (his cameo in Extras springs to mind immediately) he seems like a nice fellow who likes to have a laugh. I never really got that sort air from him. That's too bad if that's actually the case.
Maybe he's not pompous! Maybe I just extrapolated that from Gwynyth Paltrow.
The craven coward is an ex something else I might add. *sigh* You can only try so much to put a band aide on a gaping wound before the poor thing just bleeds to death.
Babe-you forgot about the best part of the evening. Walking up on two rabid racoons as they came careening out of someones drive. You showed your manliness by hiding behind me, and I showed my intelligence by running out into uncoming taffic to make my escape.
WEEEEEEE!
(I will leave the music critique to jonny)
xoxo
Trix
HA HA HA! Awesome. Welcome to my world. We have a mighty stockpile of Coldplay, the Bravery, Collective Soul, Foo Fighters, Snow Patrol... and MANY MORE!
Besides, I bet it wouldn't be too hard to find some music-mag column from 1965, saying something similar about the Beach Boys. Something all conflicted like "I know Frankie Valli did all that can be done with falsetto, and there are really only so many layers of sound you need to make a damn pop record, and how many songs do we really need about cars, or girls' names? So I should HATE these guys... but I don't."
Embrace it. Coldplay makes pop. Radiohead makes pop. The similarity pretty much ends there, sure, but consider that Wyoming has two US senators, just like California does.
I won't join your little Coldplay camp but I will say that Chris Martin is supposedly a decent dude.
So here's my (deep, deep, very deep) philosophy about music, or indeed any art: if it makes you smile, it's good.
Actually, I guess that's my philosophy about everything.
you should go see this:
http://losangeles.ucbtheatre.com/shows/1474
Remember when Coldplay first came out. And being the music nerd you are you had an early, early copy of the song Yellow, and we thought it was amazing, but we also figured they were a band that may do well in england, but would never find success here in the states, like every other so-called britpop band from back in the day. And we liked for bands not to get to big, because it made them special to us, but then Coldplay has to go and become mainstream pop superstars. I felt let down. It was the kind of music the baseball caps made fun of ten minutes ago, and now the suddenly loved it. So the seed of hatred grows. I want to hate coldplay too. I want to hate u2. But I don't, because they are fucking awesome.
I like "The Scientist" more than is healthy to admit.
I am not ashamed.
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