Hit Your Head

I also thought I would introduce something new this year and include my favourite TV shows from this year. I watch a shitload of TV and have gotten a lot more on top of watching shows while they air instead of binging them in one huge session, which has led to me getting a lot more into TV, while also getting a little more critical of what I watch. Or maybe I am just becoming a junior cultural critic. All I know is that now I think a lot more about why I like a specific part of a TV show than I used to and I sort of think about TV the way I think about music now. I'm not very diverse in my tastes, but I think I'm starting to know my shit somewhat. That being said, I am committed to lowbrow and vernacular sensibilities and will always call it "TV" instead of "television", the same way I call them "movies" and not "film". Most of the time, at least.

Anyways, my favourite TV of 2015:

Silicon Valley, season 2

I am pretty sure that Silicon Valley is my favourite show on TV right now and if it's not, then it's my favourite comedy by a landslide. This show is a lot closer to Office Space than most Mike Judge stuff, which I guess explains why I like it so much. The writing manages to balance and blend high and lowbrow humour in the way that only Mike Judge can when he's at his best. I LOVED the first season, but the second one managed improve itself by fleshing out the side characters like Danesh, Gilfoyle, and OJ. Just like the "dick joke of all dick jokes" at the end of season 1, season 2 manages to get a lot of mileage out of simple ideas by taking them as far as they can go, both logically and illogically, if that makes any sense.

Togetherness

If Silicon Valley isn't my favourite show on right now, then it is certainly this one (ignoring Thrasher's "Skateline" weekly fake-news update series, which doesn't count, I guess). The skill that the Duplass brothers have at creating funny, interesting, and most important touching movies translated perfectly to this TV series. They absolutely nail being in a stale relationship, feeling overlooked and friendship. I feel as though Togetherness is a very realistic look into life as a 30 year-old, which is something I'm not quite at, but almost at. This whole season hit me square in the goddamn feelings.

Regular Show, seasons 6 & 7

Regular Show elevated itself to "Favourite Cartoon Ever?" status pretty quickly, so I may be a bit of an RS apologist. I don't expect the level of consistently great episodes that was present until the end of the 3rd season, so I find it easier to swallow when the show puts out a fairly by-the-numbers episode involving a zany plot that resolves in a giant event. However, for every episode like that, the show has at least two great ones that do either of the following: 

1. Touch on Mordecai or Rigby romantic life with Margaret, MY GIRL C.J., and Eileen. This is secretly the show's greatest strength and when they use this as an episode's central plot it speaks to many things I've experienced myself.

2. Take the zaniness to a much higher level. The crazy episodes work best when the writers and artists wear the show's influences on their sleeves and don't shy away from corny 80's action movies, stoner comedies and anime.

Though the show is not the most even its ever been, there are many episodes which expand the show's mythology and make it even more of a joy to watch. There is not bigger parallel for me in media than reading me as Jekyll/Hyde type as Mordo and Rigby.

Man Seeking Woman

No show impressed me more in 2015 than Man Seeking Woman. After seeing the pilot I immediately became a huge fan of Simon Rich and I love reading the stuff he writes now. This show takes every insecurity that young men have while dating and blows them up into this huge surreal, silly and ridiculous monstrosity that you have to laugh at because of how stupid and silly they are, while also laughing at yourself because you can think of like five times you did the exact thing that is happening. For example worrying about your new significant other hanging out with their old one (in this case a Japanese penis monster, illustrated above) or your mom asking you about who are dating (by tying you up in a chair and torturing you for the information). I guess a big part of why I enjoy is because I am the exact demographic they are targeting (20-something straight white male), but holy shit did this show hit all the right spots for me.

Master of None

I watched the first episode and thought "Yeah, that was pretty good," but realized part way through the second how in love with this show I was. Aziz's writing on the show is amazing and balances the millenial references/criticism he's known for with a new romantic softness that works SO WELL. I would never imagined that he would be this good at writing romantic repartee. The overall arc of the two main characters is great and very relatable for anyone who's been in a long-term relationship. Not to mention that only white guy in the main cast is Eric Wareheim playing the weirdo. A wonderful debut series.

The Last Man on Earth

Will Forte is a god. Though a lot of people gave the show flack for having a protagonist that is a dick and difficult to relate to, I thought it was great that in a time of most network comedies being full of fun, great people (Parks and Rec, Brooklyn Nine-Nine), TLMoE took the opposite approach and tried to tap into the worst parts of your personality. If you think that you wouldn't react the same as these people to situations, then dog, you lyin' to yourself. The first season was a clinic in cringe humour and didn't really ever lose steam, in my opinion.

The constant building of the initial, obvious, Cast Away joke in the first episode was one of my favourite things on TV this year. I may or may not have my own power ranking of all the balls.

(Antawn just edges out Gary for the top spot)

The Jinx

When discussing this show, I've described it as "killing the true crime documentary genre" and I stand by. The revelation at the end of the series, in which Durst unknowingly confesses, is the best and craziest and most interesting thing that a documentarian  could possibly hope to achieve in making a project like this. You start with an interesting and high-profile murder case, deconstruct all of the evidence, follow the fucked up subject through his life while he keeps somehow escaping from charges, keep building and building and then bam.

Documentary Now!

A lot of great comedy is on TV right now and a lot of it is getting a lot of attention, but I think this series deserves a lot more than it gets. Fred Armisen is predictably great, but for me this was a Bill Hader tour-de-force. I really don't understand why someone hasn't taken him and made them their leading man and then laughed at how great it turned out. Each episode is a perfect send-up of its source material and though I could maybe pick a favourite one if I sat down and really thought about it, it would be really tough. The show's funny enough if you don't get all the references, but if you're picking up what they're putting down, it is phenomenal.

Rick and Morty

I only got hip to Rick and Morty this summer and powered through the first season before diving into the second right after. Funny sci-fi is hard to do well and even harder to keep funny, but this show excels at it. Jokes circle around many times in the series and keep getting better. Whereas a lot of Adult Swim shows go all-in on ridiculous and eschew continuity in favour of fucked up plots and zaniness (Aqua Teen, Sealab, Tim and Eric), whereas as this one stays just as dark and twisted while somehow maintaining a mythology. When Dan Harmon is on top of his game, there isn't really anyone who can touch him in smart, self-referential and somehow touching comedy and that is evidenced in Rick and Morty. The second season is even somehow better than the first!

I sure do watch a lot of comedies, don't I?

San Dimas High School Football Rules

This post is inspired by a chain reaction of events. This chain reaction has to do with pop-punk and American Pie.

The first link in this chain was reading this blog post. I would first like to say that the writer of that blog has a very good podcast called Sportsfeld about Toronto sports and it is one of my favourite ones to listen to. Cheap plug finished. I also have a certain affinity for the American Pie 2 soundtrack because that movie came out right as I was starting to get into music, which for me meant seeing blink-182, Sum 41 and Jimmy Eat World videos and thinking "Yes, this is what I like." This is because at the time, that style of music was extremely popular and obviously a summer teen movie is going to just be a collection of whatever is the most popular at the time. I was too young for my parents to allow me to see an R rated sec comedy, so it had a bit of a forbidden fruit appeal to it. All of this stewed together and made pop-punk seem like the coolest thing in the world to me.

(I chose those three videos because each of those are the first videos I remember seeing from each band. Also, holy shit have you ever noticed how much Travis just does not give a shit about being in the "All the Small Things" video?" Also, did I just watch all three of those videos? You bet. I hate to be "that guy", but it really does seem to me like the era of the music video that just gets stuck in your mind has passed. The most recent example I can think of is "Big Beast" by Killer Mike.

Could I write a separate blog post on just those three videos? Yes, I think I was just inspired to.)

So longest sidenote in IMU history aside, that blog by Jake Goldsbie inspired me to create my own playlist of that style of pop-punk, but stuff that wasn't included on the soundtrack. Which I will put here because I am so nice. I then listened to this soundtrack on the way to Value Village and when "The Boys of Summer" was playing I was struck by something which is the real meat of this post.

That is, the line "Out on the road today I saw a Black Flag sticker on a Cadillac".

The Ataris covered Don Henley's absolutely perfect song "The Boys of Summer" in 2003 and in addition to turn the sparse, synthy pop number into a pop-punk song, they also replaced "Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac" with their version above. If you think about it, "Black Flag" accomplishes the same thing as "Deadhead" and creates an interesting reading of the lyrics. In my mind, there is two ways to interpret this change, which I will now explain.

The first is that Ataris head-honcho Kris Roe put a lot of thought into this change. In this scenario, Roe is a huge fan of the Henley single (There's no way you can be a huge fan of all of his solo output because outside of this single it really does suck. Believe me, I tried.) and tried in earnest to add something that spoke to the original tone and story of the lyrics. "Out on the road today I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac" is meant to be an observation of how the counter-culture inevitably dies and is subsumed by the capitalistic mainstream. In this case, a 1960's hippy who we are to presume was at one time an anti-authority pacifist has now soldout and bought an expensive car. Though they still cling to their rebellious past, their need for commodities has now replaced their previous beliefs.

Taking that into account, the punk version of that sentiment could be a variety of bands (As is the case with hippies. "Mountain sticker on a Cadillac would work just as well, though it isn't as much of a cultural touchstone.), but Black Flag works perfectly. Roughly 3/10 hardcore fans have the Black Flag bars tattooed on them and the actual music of Black Flag, who really only put out three good releases, has been taken over by the idea of Black Flag representing early hardcore and thus teenaged angst, anger and rebellion. Just like The Ramones, people will now wear Black Flag t-shirts without listening to the band because they know that Black Flag is important and it is cool to wear a Black Flag shirt.

What type of punk would own a Cadillac? Are we meant to assume that Roe is singing about Travis Barker? With the last paragraph in mind, the line carries the exact same significance, but for a different generation. With pop-punk having locked-down a significant portion of the mainstream by 2003, the lyric represents Roe noting the disparity between punk's original world and intentions and the one that it existed in 2003.

If we take that reading of the line, then goddamn is it ever beautiful.

The second reading is much easier.

Kris Roe had no idea what he was doing. The Ataris were always kind of the shittier version of their 90's skate/pop-punk bretheren, so maybe they were just hopping on the "punk bands cover pop songs from 20 years earlier" trend and were simply the first ones to think of Don Henley. In this case, Kris Roe knows that punks think the Grateful Dead suck, so he replaces them with the first punk band he can think of, the almighty Black Flag. I remember when the band was promoting So Long Astoria, Roe was speaking about "The Saddest Song" from the album and said something along the lines of "On Limewire there's a song by No Use For a Name called 'The Saddest Song' that was always mislabeled as us, so we thought we should just write our own 'Saddest Song'."

That struck me as such a weird dumb, poseur thing to say, which makes think that the second reading really is an option. Then again, in "In This Diary" he says "All those nights we stayed up talking, listening to 80's songs... it still brings a smile to my face", so who knows?

But please let it be the first one, that makes it just so much better