Hello, Sunshine

So, do you like my new/old blog? I’m kind of diggin’ it, although so far I haven’t had enough time to devote to writing here. I really want to, though. It’s been a long time since I wrote just for the pure rush of it, for no specific purpose. Writing is one of the great things about being human. I wonder if angels get to write. I can imagine a lot of great things about heaven, but if angels don’t get to write, it can’t really be heaven.

You may have a noticed a slight gap in my blogging habits. Like, five years. Well, I’m sorry. I forgot to blog for five years. Oops.

Having a longstanding blog, then sticking it in the freezer for five years, is equivalent to being Rip Van Winkel. I am Rip Van Winkelblog.

Things are so different now. My blog always looked like shit, even in 2002. But in 2012 it looked like crazy shit. So, as you may have noticed, I sent it to the wash-and-brush-up ladies for a makeover. I hope it only looks like half-crazy shit now. I am mystified by people who have fancy blogs. And so jealous. Which happens to be the name of the greatest Tegan & Sara album.

Revamping my blog, I have been perusing my old articles, including a feature I did for LA Weekly when So Jealous came out. God, what a great album title.

If you haven't heard it, you should prolly go to here or here.

I truly love that album, and if you haven’t ever listened to it, I would gently urge you to go get it right now. It’s one of those rare albums (at least in this era) that has no pink slime. No filler. No extra junk that’s not quite up to snuff.

I haven’t loved their subsequent records, just as I didn’t love their records before So Jealous. Does that make me a fake Tegan & Sara fan? Oh, maybe. So what?

I am a true-blue, non-fake fan of So Jealous, an album that stands alone in their discography as a future-girlistic version of late-‘70s/early ‘80s power pop. It involves the commitment to hooks that was taken as a sacred blood oath by all the best power pop groups (the Knack, the Cars, the Beat, Nick Lowe/Rockpile, the Toms, Cheap Trick . . .). And not even all of those groups had a lot of albums that were all-beef, no-filler.

It is not a coincidence that ex-Weezer guy Matt Sharp was involved with it. Matt Sharp gives me the willies, but if you were to look at Weezer as a power pop group (which is as accurate a description as any), the Blue Album would be their primary contribution to the rock & roll hall of nonstop hook fiestas. And the Blue Album is probably the most Matt Sharpy Weezer album, if my instincts serve.

But it’s not about the guy, here. It’s about the girls. I love those girls.

I love how they have the balls to say, “There’s nothing to live for when I’m sleeping alone.” You’re not supposed to say that, you know. Especially as a girl. Girls are supposed to be independent and “kickass” at all times, dependent on no one.

I mean, that’s the goal and the feminist and Spice-Girl ideal. The reality is much messier. Oh, the heart. The Master. Damn you, Salazar!

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I always felt that because my blog looked like hell, it would be incumbent upon me to make the writing good.  I hope that my blog still looks bad enough that it is incumbent upon me to make the writing good.

Love ’n’ stuff,

Me