Fries and Ketchup: Austin City Limits Festival

The weekly column where we and mention anything we missed in the last week (or longer). It's a lot like those moments when you're out of ketchup, at a fine fast food restaurant, but lack the energy to go and get more; so you scrape away at the dregs on your hamburger wrapper, until all you can see is silver aluminum foil. It's classy, yet unrefined.

Last weekend, I caught a plane on Thursday night from DC to Austin, TX. The flight was an interesting one. Everyone aboard appeared to fit into three categories: a college professor, southern frat boy, and bohemian hipster. The college professors stood out based on their corduroy jackets, complete with arm patches, and the rare book that was the only thing they made eye contact with on the flight. From where I sat, the book's title appeared to be I'm Smarter than You. The frat boys could all be picked out before the flight and during it by offering up such poetic phrases as, "No, brah, won't be in Knoxville this weekend. I'm hittin' up ACL. It's gonna be tight. All my boys will be there," from underneath worn out baseball caps. The bohemians sported sheik beards, thick-rimmed glasses, flannel designed shirts, and anything else that made them appear to have deeply studied On the Road or that they might listen to Bob Dylan on vinyl. Personally, I sported a baseball cap, a sheik beard, thick rimmed glasses, and read from a poetry collection that I felt confident very few people have heard of. In fact, it's so rare I won't even mention its name, but it had a rhinoceros on the cover.

I could continue to write this like a chapter in my memoirs, but I'm not sure that would do anyone any good right now; so I'll cut to the chase. The following are the highlights from my ACL experience. It should also be noted that I only attended the first and last days of the festival.

Friday:

Dr. Dog was the first band that grabbed my attention and held it for a whole set. My sister, a friend of hers, and I had just finished seeing the Avett Brothers, who didn't impress me too much. They came off as an old school O.A.R. Anyway, Dr. Dog had me dancing and grooving in the Texas heat at 3:30 in the afternoon, and kept me from realizing that I was getting a little sunburned. When their set ended, I was disappointed. I could have used another half hour or so; their live momentum was still building. If they're ever in a town near you, I would check them out.

K'Naan played one of the smaller stages at ACL, but it was perfect for him. I've always argued that most emcees are benefited by smaller venues. It's just hard for one dude to fill a festival venue with just his lyrics, a mic, and a beat. K'Naan is a performer who can do that. Hearing him live one notices just how musically diverse his music is. The crowd really got into his song "Bang Bang" because it was one of the first singles off his album Troubador, but "Wavin' Flag" and "Somalia" were incredibly moving. He also talked to the crowd more than most artists do at festivals; it was really like we were just hanging out in a basement or someone's living room.

Andrew Bird may have been the most talented musician at ACL. I only caught the last half of his show because I spent the first half checking out Dave Grohl's side project Them Crooked Vultures. What I heard of Bird's set made me wish that I had bypassed seeing Grohl, legend John Paul Jones, and Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age). Grohl was awesome to see playing the drums, like Animal from the Muppets, but Bird is as my sister puts it, "one of those rare geniuses that is just intimidating to behold."

Sunday:

Heartless Bastards were by far my favorite discovery of the weekend. Erika Wenerstrom, in her jean shorts and tall cowboy boots, is an incredibly talented performer. The reason might be because she appears as a cross between Tom Petty and Kate Blanchett. I would suggest Blanchett play her in a film, but people would probably think it was just another take on one of Bob Dylan's many lives. This band hails from Ohio, so comparison to The Black Keys are easy to make; but the Heartless Bastards have more of a grace to their sound. I don't know what else to say about them except that their effort on stage was full of sincerity. Buy their album The Mountain now. If you're hesitating on the purchase, then check out their songs "Out to Sea" and "The Mountain" first and go from there.

State Radio pretty much sounds just like Dispatch, which makes sense because Chad Urmston was/is the frontman for both. The only difference is that State Radio takes a more political slant to the frat reggae vibe that Dispatch did so well. The greatest thing about their performance was the unspoken metaphor. A bunch of hippies wallowed in what they thought was mud but was really refined sewage, which somehow ties into the feel good vibe of State Radio's music that's really about what a muddy mess the world is in. Seriously, how many people came away from ACL with hookworm?

Pearl Jam were not only the best performers at the Festival, but they were also the best received. Walking back to our car, I heard several people younger than myself say, "[Pearl Jam's] show blew me away. I didn't realize they had so many good songs." Okay, winning over a bunch of drunk college (or were they in high school) may not mean much, but it should be noted that Pearl Jam's set did not include the hits "Jeremy," "Black," or "Betterman." This show was a testament to this band has always been: a testament to free will. They came out and played what they wanted to play, and the crowd ate it up. After having admitted to staying up with Ben Harper all of Saturday night, Eddie Vedder came onto stage in what appeared to already be a bottle or so of wine into the evening, but he found his legs and wound up wading through the mud and fecal matter just like everyone else at ACL, as he came down off the stage and ran through the crowd during "Keep on Rockin' in the Free World." At different points in the night, Pearl Jam was joined on stage by Ben Harper and Perry Farrell of Jane's Addiction.

Band I wish I'd seen: The Yeah Yeah Yeahs (people who saw their set raved about it)

Fries and Ketchup

The weekly column where we and mention anything we missed in the last week (or longer). It's a lot like those moments when you're out of ketchup, at a fine fast food restaurant, but lack the energy to go and get more; so you scrape away at the dregs on your hamburger wrapper, until all you can see is silver aluminum foil. It's classy, yet unrefined.

Music:

Last weekend, I buried my grandfather. This week, a close colleague of mine passed away while at work. This year is my third year teaching, and every year I've taught at least two inclusion classes with Ms. Smith. Her death shocked me. She appeared in good health and was only in her early 40's. My grandfather was 91. Ms. Smith's last words were, "Dory, please don't let me die." My grandfather died, saying, "I guess Pat's getting tired of waiting on me." My grandfather leaves behind him an extended family of children, grandchildren, uncles, aunts, and cousins. Ms. Smith leaves behind an eight year old daughter and what feels like an unfinished legacy of reaching special needs children.

Under these circumstances, I've spent the last week listening to Pearl Jam's ninth studio album Back Spacer. The album is everything Binaural should have been, mixing Pearl Jam's punk roots with their folk roots seamlessly. Critics have pretty much limited the discussion of Back Spacer to its first three or four songs, claiming that they show the band can still rock, while throwing out random references to Ten, which just might be Pearl Jam's weakest and most immature album.The isolated anger and frustration that bore songs such as "Once," "Why Go Home," and "Black" has given way to the maturity that songs like "Alive," "Jeremy," and "Oceans" hinted this band could achieve but at the same time failed to fully grasp. "Jeremy" was always a song that mattered, not because it was angry, but because it identified with the shooter. "Jeremy" mattered because it blamed the rest of the world for dehumanizing Jeremy to the point he would bring a gun to school. His crimes were an indictment of how our society functions, and the adolescent questions of how and why such events could occur have now given way to a mature doctrine, found in the lyrics of Back Spacer's "Unthought Known": "Dream the dreams of other men. You'll be no one's rival." Back Spacer is a manual on how to prevent anyone from going through the trials that produced the anger and rage found on Ten, making it the more important work.

More importantly, Pearl Jam's Back Spacer continues to prove that pigeon holing this band as brooding cynics who take themselves too seriously was always and still is a huge misinterpretation of their catalog. Songs like "Amongst the Waves," with its chorus "Riding high amongst the waves/ I can feel like I have a soul that has been saved/ I can see the light/ coming through the clouds in rays," are driven by their perspectives of optimism and spirituality. Back Spacer even features an ode to the Super Sonics leaving Seattle, and, in a song that was inspired by an NBA owner's rejection of their home city, Pearl Jam finds a hopeful perseverance: "Supersonic, Truth be told/ I don't need you to live, But I'll Never let you go." A nice touch to this song is the cartoon Sonics Sasquatch next to the lyrics in the album art. Pretty serious, huh?

Pearl Jam, once it dealt with its own demons, has always been a band driven by the idea that everyone is connected by our shared humanity and, in being human, that we share emotional states and experiences. Eddie Vedder sings it time and time again on Back Spacer: "Slide on next to me/ I'm just a human being." It's strange that a band driven by such Transcendental-hippie ideals has earned a reputation as always being outraged and depressed. Perhaps, what depressed us most about Pearl Jam is that their love actually demands one change the way they live, as opposed to the love sung in a Beatles song that makes no mention of "paths cut by the moon," Henry Adams forces of nature, or a spirituality that is more than a hook and a melody.

The love Pearl Jam shares on Back Spacer got me through this week, and I don't know how many bands are capable of achieving that time and time again.

Television:
While shows like Community were well-hyped over the summer with strong marketing campaigns that earned them spots in Rolling Stone's "50 Reasons to Watch Television," a lot of them have failed to meet the hype or the potential of their casts. Modern Family, on ABC, is by far the funniest new show I've seen in a while. I stumbled upon this show this past Wednesday flipping channels, and it's the first family sitcom since Arrested Development that appears to be both interesting and relevant to the times in which we live.

In just the pilot episode, viewers were treated with Ed O'Neill's return to prime time television, a father shooting his own son with a pellet gun, and a gay couple presenting their adopted Vietnamese baby as if it were Simba from The Lion King.

Atlanta Braves Take 3 of 4 Against the New York Mets

The Braves came out of the Yellow Sea that is the All-Star Break as something more than what they had been, taking the field against the Mets as a 450 pound jellyfish. Prior to the Break, Atlanta's offense had all but dried up on the shore, looking like a team ready for dissection, leaving fans and experts to comb over the sands, mocking a 650 million year old creature's inability to evolve, but, now, after outscoring the Mets 24 to 9 in four games, with a total of 6 home runs, this jellyfish may be proving that its lack of complexity is a calculated risk-- simplicity equals survival.

All year, the Braves have been a slow, plodding team of singles hitters, whose offensive cohesiveness and productivity mirrored the board game Mouse Trap. This analogy may no longer be applicable. The discontinuation of this Milton Bradley board game does not mean that the Braves got faster or became a power-hitting team over the break; it just means that a deeper truth emerged at Turner Field this weekend, and this truth can be found in the depths of the ocean.

Before Babe Ruth industrialized the game of baseball with the power of a combustible engine in his home run stroke, the game of baseball was played for almost 90 years as a game of singles and doubles. Before 1930, the game saw less than one home run per outing. Because the home run occurs with such frequency now, most believe the home run is a necessary part of the game. But if the home run were vital to the game's survival, then the game could not have survived a near century with less than one happening every game. In other words, the home run is not necessary for the game of baseball to survive as a living organism, just as a brain, a heart, or a skeletal system were never necessary for life either.

Jellyfish are a collection of nerve impulses and tentacles, and they are one of the oldest and deadliest hunters this planet has ever known. While creatures of more complexity, like the dinosaur, gave way to extinction, the jellyfish continued to stalk its prey in the waves of the sea. Before the shark shaped its jaw bone and grew its fins, the jellyfish ruled. If durability and consistency are the tests by which one judges a 162 game regular season, then what better lawyer is there than the jellyfish, which has lasted millions of years on nerves alone?

While the Braves did manage a home run in every game against the Mets, they clinched the series today, in the fifth inning, when eight different guys worked together like tentacles, stinging their prey into submission, before pulling said prey into their mouth, to be devoured. The killing was not done for style or as an act of intimidation, but purely for survival; it was a lesson on instinct and how instinct buys a team time.

This team, as a jellyfish, will not inspire school children to answer the question "what's your favorite animal" differently, but this team will survive by doing whatever is necessary to stay in the playoff hunt. Nate McLouth, who went hitless in the series, displayed this survival instinct when he reached base four times on walks and continued to hustle after every ball in the outfield, contributing to the win despite his struggles. Chipper showed it with a sacrifice fly, to drive in a run. Javier Vazquez characterized this attitude by coming out and pitching seven great innings despite the fact that this team rarely scores runs for him, and Yunel Escobar, the King Jellyfish, showed it all series, as he went 7 for 14 in the series, with 2 home runs, 8 RBIs, and 4 runs.

During the first half of the season, this team played games in the sun and games in the rain, and the rain was always something to fear; but, times change, and the jellyfish's tenure on this planet shows that, while everything else may change, survival can be found in being constant--know one's strengths and know one's weaknesses. Perhaps, this team does not need the sun but the rough waves, the pounding rains, and the turmoil that is the ocean. This team is made for a long fight, not a victory lap, and the real fighting starts Monday against the Giants.

I used to be a crustacean

In an underwater nation

And I surf in celebration

Of a billion adaptations

Got me a big wave, ride me a big wave, got me a big wave

Got me a big wave, ride me a big wave, got me a big wave

I feel the need planted in me

millions of years ago

Can't you see the ocean's size?

Defining time and tide arising

Arms laid upon me

Being so kind to let me ride....

Can We Get Some Ketchup with These Fries?

"Ketchup" is a clever pun that means let's catch up, and it's these high octane jokes that keep our number of readers down to myself, Langston, and my Mom. Mom, thanks for supporting all the time I spend on the internet. I look forward to seeing you on Friday when I come out of the basement for the first time in months. PS Is it cool if I bring some laundry for you to do?

Three Futures for America( Tiger Woods, Andy Roddick, and Joey Chestnut):

This past weekend featured three of America's greatest individual competitors, not counting Michael Phelps. Andy Roddick held back tears as he came to terms with the fact that no matter how much he gives of himself he may never win Wimbledon. Tiger became jovial at the idea that not only does he continue to win, but he even gets to present the trophies now, while Joey Chestnut kept on eating.

Joey Chestnut embodies a nation of consumers who produce nothing. He is a ticking time bomb that will eventually evolve into the Nothing from the Never Ending Story . Seriously, when Kobayashi first burst onto the scene, I thought this festival of gluttony was a passing fad; instead, America became obsessed with Kobayashi and searched for someone to prove that no foreigner can out eat an American.

In 2007, Joey Chestnut became America's knight in shining armor and defeated the one known as "The Tsunami"-- Chestnut was American fortitude defeating a natural force, sent from abroad. Now, Chestnut has upped the record of hot dogs devoured in 12 minutes from Kobayashi's mark of 53.75 to 68. Too bad Asia's dominance in the areas of science and math hasn't motivated America to produce a Dr. Chestnut who could put his energies into solving real problems like how to reverse America's transformation from producer to consumer, but instead, Chestnut shoves insane portions of junk food into a space that was never designed to hold that much food--the whole contest is unnatural and goes against natural laws.

On Sunday, the day after Chestnut attempted to eat mankind into extinction by dwindling the world's food supply and conquering the forces of nature yet again, Tiger Woods and Andy Roddick modeled another road for America to take, but while these two athletes have taken the same road, their destinations on that road are quite different.

America has always been an innovator, and constant innovation requires constant adaptation. New situations and problems arise that require new strategies and solutions. America currently faces a tough economic crisis that goes hand in hand with an environmental impasse. The Joey Chestnut model offers hope for solving neither; however Andy Roddick and Tiger Woods offer examples of how one can reinvent who they are and, in doing so, alter their futures.

Andy Roddick began his career as the pretty boy with the big serve, winning the 2003 U.S. Open at the age of 21, but since then, he's become the guy who isn't quite good enough. That clip shows a Roddick that, at the time, people thought had limitless potential. He was both literally and figuratively embraced as the hero of a nation. The problem is Roger Federer won his first Grand Slam the following February and hasn't stopped since, causing people to renege on their hasty embrace of Roddick as the next great anything.

Andy's destiny was not to become the best tennis player of his generation. His destiny was to be a guy who works and competes extremely hard, becoming more than the power server he was at the start of his career but not the champion everyone assumed he would be. Andy has been criticized for not being as good as others thought he was, while all he's done is work to meet the unrealistic expectations placed before him. Andy Roddick is now a good all-around player, but after Sunday, he's still not a Wimbledon champion because he ran into the supernatural force that is Roger Federer. This occurrence is not Andy's failure, but at this point in time, one must assume that Andy's natural place in the world is runner-up to Roger Federer's dominance.

Think of it this way. Humans have "ruled" the Earth for the last 2.5 million years, which is a tiny portion of the Earth's 4.5 billion year life span. Andy Roddick is homo erectus. He took his first steps when he won the U.S. Open, and everyone followed in his footsteps, celebrating, thinking this whole walking on two legs and using sophisticated tools will last forever, but then over consumption and climate change came along just like Roger Federer and made everyone doubt old Andy's inclinations to rise out of creation's mud, displaying that maybe humanity isn't the last step in the evolutionary chain; something better may always be on the horizon, or there are natural laws that dictate just how far homo erectus can walk and just how much homo erectus can achieve. In the least, when Andy Roddick plays Federer, homo erectus stares into a mirror and sees a more sophisticated homo sapien sapien looking back at him.

The conflict for Andy is his self-perception versus his reality. Andy still wants to be the big champion. While everyone else jumps ship, he's still making his walk out of Africa, fighting against a constant chain of defeats to Federer, and each defeat tells Andy that he isn't so far removed from the muck of God's imagination. Andy's constant tweaking of his game is a refusal to accept his given place in the world. He thumbs his nose at the gods with every enthused run at a Grand Slam final, refusing to get the hint that he's not supposed to keep coming back for more, that maybe God is done with him and Global Warming is Heaven's eraser; instead, Andy keeps sticking out his tongue and sketching in his notepad the same footprints he believes changed homo erectus into homo sapien sapien, not realizing that his efforts had little to do with such evolutionary changes. These changes ironically occurred because humanity accepted its place in the world, not because it demanded that the plans of the gods were faulty.

In a way, Andy Roddick's efforts are as unnatural as Chestnut's contests of consumption, albeit more daring and heroic. However, hard work is not always met with constant defeat and the struggle of going against the grain of what is supposed to be. Andy Roddick can not go to sleep as homo erectus and wake up as homo sapien sapien. Homo sapien sapien was born as homo sapien sapien. The same way that Federer and Tiger Woods were.

Tiger Woods burst onto the scene with victories and has continued to be victorious. His win in the '97 Masters was similar to Roddick's U.S. Open in '03 because both rushed to hug their fathers after their "Hello World" wins, but Tiger's destiny, unlike Roddick's, was to remain the victor. Roddick has revamped his game, and all it got him was a part in the longest Grand Slam Final in history; it was the stuff of tragedy, while Tiger's continuous tinkering with his own swing has won him tournament after tournament, including the AT&T this past weekend.

If both of these competitors put in the work to reach the top of their games but only one is a great champion, then one can assume that perhaps there are other things at work here besides man's free will. Perhaps, some stations in life are dictated by natural forces. No matter how hard he worked leading up to Wimbledon, Roddick was not going to defeat Federer, but he had to believe he would be victorious or else he would not have followed through on the changes that placed him in one of the greatest tennis matches of all time. The belief that people can change their destinies is what gives people the energy to walk boldly into the future, even if how boldly one walks does not dictate where one is headed.

Even if America can not alter her destiny, America can still choose which road will carry her into the future. She can stay her current course and wind up as bloated as Joey Chestnut, kicked to the curb of the world's timeline as useless and trivial, or America can reshape herself and get serious about remaking her economy and reversing climate change; but America needs to be well aware that one's effort to achieve greatness does not by itself assure that greatness will be granted. Andy Roddick teaches this lesson every time he comes up painstakingly short, in an effort to realign the stars.

Books to Read:

A lot of what I just wrote was heavily influenced by two books I've read recently. The "thumbing his nose at the god" definitely came from Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle, which I wish I'd read about five years ago, when I was still in college and loved anything that questioned everything. Still, I'm glad I just read it because season 5 of Lost just ended, and without giving anything away about the book or the show, Cat's Cradle offers a glimpse at how Lost became one of the most puzzling/rewarding show's in the history of television. In the book, a group of strangers all wind up on a plane that takes them to a mysterious island and the fate of the world is at stake. Sound familiar? It is, except the book prominently features a midget artist instead of a smoke monster.

The above video debuted in 1998; I was in 9th grade. I thought it was one of the most amazing things I'd ever seen. It was also around the time when I wanted all my music "to say something," and I didn't care how over the top Pearl Jam or any other artist went "to say something," as long as it wasn't Limp Bizkit saying something.

Anyway, I finally read the book Ishmael by Daniel Quinn this past week. Eddie Vedder read Ishmael and wrote "Do the Evolution." While I haven't written a punk-metal anthem after reading the book, I have gained some new perspective on the world from it. Quinn takes a lot of ideas that usually sound too discombobulated, because they're being recited by hippies, to be taken seriously and organizes them into one well-executed philosophical argument about what's wrong with the world and what can be done to fix it. Quinn tries to end the book on a positive, inspirational note, but as Pearl Jam's video shows, the book's message can also be taken as one of pessimism.

Films to see:

Before grilling out on July 4th, I went and saw Public Enemies. I went with my girlfriend and Steveo. We all came out of the movie saying we liked it. The only weak part about the film was in its exposition. The film didn't clearly frame what statement it wanted to make about Dillinger's life, but the longer the film went, the more I felt it came together, mainly because it has an amazing supporting cast: Christian Bale, Billy Crudup, Giovanni Ribisi, two actors from The Wire, and Marion Cotillard. To me, the film compares favorably with The Untouchables; it's not the perfect film it had the potential to be, but it's worth seeing.

In this way, the film reminded me of this NBA offseason. The film leaves one thinking that if Dillinger had known when to quit or stuck to his belief about only working with guys he trusts, then perhaps his death would not have been so violent. Most NBA champions weather the storms of postseason defeat together before they enjoy the fruits of being the last team standing. The only team I can think that doesn't fit this mold is the 2008 Boston Celtics, who were thrown together before the 07-08 season started but came together because of their overwhelming talent and hunger.

Dillinger worked best when he worked with guys he knew, guys who had been through the trenches with him. Things start unravelling for him when he begins working with other all-star criminals like Baby Face Nelson. I feel like this offseason a lot of NBA teams quit letting their teams grow together and just went out and went looking for Baby Face Nelson's to put them over the top.

The Spurs, Cavs, and Celtics seem to be especially acting like a desperate Dillinger, which is why the Lakers are the early favorites again for next year. The Lakers more than any of these other teams have a group of guys who have been through the fire together. Of course, Ron Artest best resembles Baby Face Nelson out of all these guys, so who knows how this will end? One thing's for sure, the Lakers are the only one of these teams that doesn't look like they just got out of a gunfight and need to be stitched up in the middle of the night already. In other words, all these gambles will only work out for one of these teams, and it's the clean up for all these other teams that could get messy.

If you're looking for a sure thing, go and see The Hangover. It's like the Clippers, but you don't feel guilty for laughing because no one tore an ACL to make the comedic magic happen. Also, if you buy Ron Artest as the over-the-top brother-in-law, then maybe the Lakers are The Hangover, which means that everyone from Gasol to Kobe is in danger of being rufied now.

Music to hear:

If you're looking for something to play while grilling out on your deck or driving down the road, check out Ben Kweller's latest album Changing Horses.

In the past, he's always sounded like Weezer or a piano bar rocker, but Horses shows more of his Texan roots and that maybe homo erectus did have the right idea--the only way to ever get home again is to change up one's style and start walking.

I Love this Band: Pearl Jam on Conan O'Brien

Pearl Jam helped Conan make his transition to a new time slot with their new song "Got Some." I can't wait for the new album Backspacer, and I just have to say that there are not many bands of this caliber that have rocked this hard so late into their careers. Enjoy and good luck in the new time slot, Conan.

Clemson vs. North Carolina (62-43 Carolina at the time of posting)

Most bands get more polished with time, like stones in a river they lose their edge. Pearl Jam's angriest album was Ten.  Vedder wailed and screamed, but he hadn't learned to sing yet.  His voice possessed a limited vocal range.  Green Day dropped more f-bombs in their early days before they tried making political statements.  U2 was once a punk band.  Led Zeppelin debuted with a thunder clap of rhythm and blues.  The Beastie Boys were their most crude on Licensed to Ill.  They were drunk and misogynistic.  Now, they have gray beards and want to free Tibet.  Time refines everything.  Time makes edges into curves, and curves don't draw blood.  Bands appear on the musical scene with a hunger and a desire that can not be quelled.  Drums pound like the heart of a savage beast.  Guitars thrash like helicopter blades in Vietnam jungles, and the bass pumps like blood.  When bands first arrive on the scene, they play like their hour of light might be the last on earth anyone will ever see.  They play like the end of their set will be swallowed up by an eternal darkness.  

Four seasons ago, Carolina's senior class arrived on the college basketball scene like a brazen punk band.  They were The Clash.  They were The Ramones. They were the Sex Pistols.  They were freshmen, who everyone doubted.  The 2005 championship team was gone, except for David Noel, Reyshawn Terry, and Quentin Thomas.  This team played hard every night.  They crashed the boards and played defense because they didn't realize yet how talented they were.  They didn't realize that in Tyler Hansbrough and Danny Green they had the foundations of an offensive juggernaut.  They played hard because they had to play hard for anyone to notice.  Movements in music and basketball just don't happen.  People make them happen with sweat and fire.  Movements also die and disperse when the adrenaline of what's new wears off.  Punk kicks rock and roll in the ass, and then it becomes new wave music, and bands filled with gasoline and raw spit become The Police.  They're nice to listen to, but they lack the same grit.  They seem too exposed and worldly.  Good punk bands are kegs of dynamite; they are explosives trapped in their local music scenes, and when they break out, it's chaos, a punch to the gut, a transformation of what was through pain.  Bands like The Police don't break through with that same intensity.  

Right now, the North Carolina basketball team is The Police, or any supergroup, that eventually crumbles under the weight of the world's and their own expectations, or at least, that's what they've appeared to be since they took finals at the end of the fall semester.  Since then, they've looked more vulnerable and dropped two conference games.  Now, they're a band trying to rediscover their earlier sound.  They're trying to rediscover what made them successful in the first place.  They're trying to go back to the start.  The only problem is the bands that stay successful are hungry for the future, not the past.  It's the difference between Pearl Jam's Pearl Jam and Guns 'n Roses Chinese Democracy.  Pearl Jam's Pearl Jam is a band moving forward with the hunger of a new purpose, to comment on the struggles and pain that bind everyone, to peel back the avocado, until there is only a pit of truth.  Chinese Democracy is a forced effort to be relevant again.  

Carolina, starting with tonight's game against Clemson, will reveal the core of who it is, its pit of truth.  Is this team The Police, a collection of talent that will break under the pressures of its own egos and their failures to compromise?  Is this team Guns 'n Roses, a band who was always more flash than substance?  Or is this team Pearl Jam, a team that ducks #1 rankings and accolades to carve its own path into history?  

Whatever this team is, I hope they figure it out soon.  I hope the second half against Miami, where Tywon Lawson buckled down to play defense and Wayne Ellington lit up the scoreboard are signs of things to come.  I hope their actions in that game were done for their teammates as much as for themselves.  This team has got to play for one another and no one else, including the fans.  Hopefully, the losses they've suffered so far this season reminded them of who they're fighting for--each other.  

North Carolina vs. Wake Forest: Yeah, We're 0-2 in the ACC (so what)

I wanted to recap this game last night, but then I realized all I would have written would have been the dialogue from this scene in The Wire, as I tried to figure out what exact angle Jeff Teague used to put a bullet in North Carolina.  Seriously, it felt like someone died.
(NSFW)

Digger Phelps will beat this loss into the ground with a highlighter until Carolina plays Virginia on Thursday, so I'm going to try and keep these points brief (won't happen):

-What started the season as an extremely deep team may not be as deep as we first thought.  First, let's mention what no one talks about when they talk about who's not here from last year.  At first glance, we didn't lose much at all, just Quentin Thomas, a favorite of mine, but an average backup point guard.  People keep forgetting that Alex Stepheson transferred to USC, which would not matter much either, except that Tyler Zeller broke his wrist in the second game of the season and is out for the year.  A front line that once promised to include senior All-American Tyler Hansbrough, juniors Deon Thompson and Alex Stepheson, and freshmen Tyler Zeller and Ed Davis is now down to Tyler Hansbrough, Deon Thompson, and Ed Davis, which wouldn't be so bad except for the next two points.

-Tyler Zeller is not the only injury affecting this team, which seems like an obvious statement because Marcus Ginyard is somewhere between bench warmer and suit model.  Ginyard is the team's best perimeter defender.  His injury means Danny Green starts, which means the spark off the bench for Carolina the last two years now has to start.  Carolina would be able to overcome this injury to Ginyard if Zeller were still healthy, but with Zeller out, the Carolina bench is minus two double-digit scorers.  There is no spark, like a relationship that just trudges on out of habit, which is what this team seems to be doing at the moment and leads into the next topic.

-Tyler Hansbrough hasn't been Psycho T this year.  His stats are there.  He's averaging 22.4 ppg and 7.5 rpg, and in the two losses, he put up 21 points against Wake Forest and 17 against Boston College while piling up 20 rebounds in the two games.  Those numbers are solid.  They'll earn a guy recognition on all-conference and all-American teams, but numbers don't tell the whole story.  The story of Tyler Hansbrough is the story of Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill, and Hercules.  Whenever Carolina has been in trouble over the last few years, he's impersonated Atlas.  He hasn't done this in the first two ACC games this season.  

Is he mentally fatigued?  It's possible.  He has been the most talked about, the most hated, and the most scrutinized player in the nation for three years now.  However likely this might be, I think he's physically tired.  He missed a few games out of the gate this season and couldn't have gotten the usual amount of preseason conditioning, and it's showing.  He's not getting his normal positioning deep in the paint come the second half.  His jumper is coming up short, and a couple of times against Wake he got run off the floor.  

I hope he catches his breath, but what happens to this team if he doesn't?  Does anyone else on this team have the cajones to play Atlas?  Sean May had Ray Felton and Rashad McCants.  George Lynch had Derrick Phelps and Eric Montross.  James Worthy had Michael Jordan and Sam Perkins?  Lennie Rosenbluth had a group of guys that stared down Wilt the Stilt, but who does Hansbrough have?

-One would think that either Tywon Lawson or Wayne Ellington would help Hansbrough put this team on that list of champions, but Lawson has now been outplayed by the last three premier college point guards he's gone up against.  Last year, in the Final Four, Mario Chalmers schooled him.  Tyrese Rice lit him up for 25 points two games ago, and last night Jeff Teague dropped 34 on him.  When Lawson came back to school this year, I don't think this is the kind of education he had in mind.  I like Lawson a lot.  I love that he drives to the basket like a running back, but I can't understand why he struggles so much guarding opposing point guards.  Lawson's line last night was 9 points, 5 assists, and 4 turnovers.  It's that last statistic that really hurt.

Wayne Ellington is another story.  I can see why he doesn't play great defense.  He plays smaller than his height of 6'4" and he's not that strong.  The tale of Wayne Ellington is his shooting percentage.  He's on the floor to score, and last night he put up 17 points; but he shot 4-13 in doing so and 2-7 on three-point field goals.  He's like a Robert Frost poem--he's "Fire and Ice."  

I like both of these guys a lot and hope one of them steps up soon.  Without Ginyard, one of them has to do more than just be an offensive weapon.

-A guy who is stepping up is Danny Green.  This guy is a monster, a Swiss Army knife.  He only had 9 points against Boston College, but his three point field goals down the stretch made the game closer than it felt like (it felt like BC was blowing us out).  Last night, he poured in 22 points, shooting 6-9 from inside the arc and 3-4 from downtown.  He also posted 6 rebounds and 5 steals, but his best play of the night was a dive on the floor that showed just what kind of a player Danny is.  

He does everything it takes to win, and he wants to win badly.  Danny by far has the most NBA potential on this team, depending on how Ed Davis develops over the next three years.  He's also the guy who keeps this team loose, whether he's dancing before the game or telling guys not to get involved in one on one battles, as he did a couple times last night with Tywon Lawson.  

-As I catch by breath and put things into perspective, I realize that a 14-2 record is nothing to be ashamed of at this point in the season.  The 2005 championship team lost to Santa Clara in the season opener and they lost by 13 at Wake Forest that year and later to Duke  at Cameron.  The 1993 title team lost to Michigan in the Rainbow Classic, and later beat those same Wolverines for the title.  The '93 team also lost consecutive games to Wake Forest and Duke, both of which were away games.  The '93 team also lost what I as a third grader thought was the most heartbreaking thing I'd ever seen in the ACC championship game to Georgia Tech.  The 1982 Carolina team lost at home to Wake Forest and got blown out at Virginia.  This team may be focusing too much on its long term goals, forgetting that it takes baby steps to get there.

This 0-2 start in the ACC by a veteran team is not insurmountable.  Tyler Hansbrough is a sleeping giant.  Lawson and Ellington will take this to heart.  Danny will keep dancing, and the freshmen will continue to develop.  The BC loss can be blamed on the team shooting 55% from the foul line.  Wake simply beat them, but keep in mind the last Carolina team to start 0-2 in conference still made the Final Four.  Heck, the 2000 Carolina team made the Final Four.  The time to panic has yet to come, as long as the team disagrees with Lawson's statement that "this will work itself out."  Chances are it won't.

In the meantime, this team will have to live with the scrutiny that comes from expectations that are placed on them by outsiders.  The talk of an undefeated season was ridiculous and premature and will earn this team extra skepticism.  Also, I'm not trying to lay more criticism on the team that's wins and losses determine my mood, like a mood ring; I'm just venting, trying to erase the image of Jeff Teague taunting our guys.  It's all I've got.  I can't go out there and play.

I just want this team to do whatever it has to in order to keep Teague from saying Boston College is a bigger deal than playing Carolina, to put the cap back on Digger's highlighter, and keep the message boards from going crazy, and the answer is to bring it against UVA.  Until then, here's Eddie to help everyone in the Carolina family deal with expectations and the frustration that sometimes comes along with them.  It can feel like 5 against 1.

No More Icons: how we killed 'em with text messages and iPods

I'm not claiming to say anything new in this post. I'm not even claiming that I'll still sound young by the end of it. These are just a web of thoughts that collected themselves in my head over the last week; cobwebs that I need to clear out.

I was in Virginia Beach last week to see Pearl Jam and the Kings of Leon. It was my second time seeing Pearl Jam and my first time seeing the Kings of Leon. My first time seeing Pearl Jam was a few years ago in Philadelphia. It was on the 4th of July and during "Keep on Rockin' in the Free World," fireworks went off over the Ben Franklin Bridge that crosses the Delaware--the sky was on fire.

The audience that night was in sync with every pop of the snare and every slow hand on the guitar. People of all ages moshed, hippie-danced, and headbanged for three hours with Eddie, Mike, Stone, Jeff, and Matt. During a cover of "Baba O'Riley," Eddie donned a George W. Bush mask and banged tambourines together like some wild ape, and we all pranced like monkeys before the stage. The scene was straight out of Disney's The Jungle Book. Eddie was King Louie, and we were Mowgli, being introduced to our more primitive, perhaps even better, side.

Now, flash forward five years from the night of that concert to 2008. Pearl Jam was a bit more mellow, and in some ways, the mood can be explained. They had just headlined Bonnaroo a couple nights before, they're older, and the sky was no longer on fire. Instead, a full moon glowed like a lone ember, like this was the last place bits of Chuck Berry's Promethean fire still burned, and I wondered out loud:

Is rock n' roll dying?

I'd never thought this before. I'm usually in denial of apocalypses. During sporting events, my father thinks it's over as soon as our team falls behind, even if it's the first quarter. I still think whatever team we're rooting for has a chance five minutes after the final whistle blows. I believe in destiny, second chances, resurrections, Willis Reed's, MJ's second three-peat, and that Tiger Woods will always sink putts on 18 at Torrie Pines. A girl dumps me; I write love poems everyday for weeks, months, and even years, thinking I can will love back into her heart. Did I watch Return of the Jedi too much as a kid or read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe at too young of an age? Maybe, but for this post, I'm going to blame The Who's Tommy.

Tommy went from deaf, blind, and dumb to seeing and hearing. He starts a social movement, a radical revolution of spiritual pinball players. I've always wanted to believe in radical revolutions, especially if they revolve around individuals reaching higher spiritual planes. It's why I relate to the film Almost Famous-- I want rock 'n roll to be some sort of savior. I want rock albums to open my mind and everyone else's. The concert I went to last week showed me that I may be asking too much, not of the bands, but of the audiences. A congregation has to actively participate in its deliverance.

Tommy's Uncle Ernie takes advantage of the miracle that sets Tommy free of his physical barriers, practically televangizing the movement. T-shirts are made and sold, and everyone is plugged into their very own pinball machine, expecting their own miracle cure. The cure never happens.

People want instant gratification, they don't get it, and they call their savior a hoax, an ape in lion's clothing, a Chauncey Billups. Last week, this rejection of waiting for the moment when salvation arrives could be seen full blown in the lawn of the Virginia Beach ampitheatre. I have never seen so many people texting at a show before, unless it was a Dave Matthews or O.A.R. show filled with sorority sisters. Video didn't kill the radio star, but the text message is definitely holding a gun to the concert's head.

This show had transcendental moments like "Not for You" and "Rearviewmirror" being stretched by latitudes and longitudes beyond their album versions, but whenever there was a moment that did not completely overwhelm the audience, or the audience needed a break, attention spans would falter and the phones would come out.

Rock 'n roll isn't dying, but the collectiveness of the audience is.

Kings of Leon opened for Pearl Jam. They were amazing. Eddie came out and performed their closing number with them, "Slow Nights, So Long." Kings of Leon returned the favor by performing "Keep on Rockin' in the Free World" with Pearl Jam, but I was amazed by how many people either didn't know who Kings of Leon are or shrugged their shoulders at the duets; but were able to keep on texting.

Rock 'n roll is not dying. Bands like Kings of Leon prove that it's still got a pulse, as do Arcade Fire, My Morning Jacket, MGMT, Dr. Dog, Band of Horses, The Black Keys, and a host of other somewhat indie bands.

But what is dying is the audience's collectiveness, and with that die the iconic moments that make rock music seem vital to the human experience, that make Bob Dylan switching from acoustic to electric bigger than Nixon to China, that make The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show a riot, that make Elvis' hips into tectonic plates, that make the wall between Aerosmith and RUN-DMC akin to the Berlin Wall, guitars on fire into prayer flags, flannel into kudzu, and a man sliding backwards on a dancefloor into bigger and badder than Neil Armstrong's wildest dreams. If Pearl Jam came out today, would they even sniff the cover of Time magazine? If they did, then it would certainly be a lie for the headline to read: "All the Rage: Angry young rockers like Pearl Jam give voice to the passions and fears of a generation."

The most iconic music image of the last decade was probably an exposed nipple during the Super Bowl halftime show, an exposed nipple that I missed because I took a second to dip a hot wing in ranch dressing. If musical moments can change lives, then they need to last longer than it takes to dip a hot wing.

Is it our attention spans? Is it text messaging? Is it the lack of diversity on the radio that's robbing music of its unifying power; its ability to give a generation's memories a collective soundtrack? Maybe, but it could also be because we all have our own personal pinball machines. We all have iPods. Maybe generational soundtracks are not needed. Maybe individual soundtracks are more empowering because they are exercises in free will, and maybe the iconic moments I'm looking for need to be found in my own life. Still, they will not be found on the screen of a cell phone, and still, I can't help thinking that Pearl Jam is like that orange moon, a lone, dying ember in a vast sky that will soon go black.

I'm not scared of the dark. I just know that times are changing, and where we once waited for Prometheus to bring us fire out of the sky; we will now use our iPods to light our own paths. The difference in where we get our light raises an age old question of free will versus determinism. Do we wait to be directed or take our own musical journeys? While gaining individual confidence in our own choices, do we lose something that can not be described in the dissipation of the group? Do we lose the tribe? Do we lose the campfire? Do we lose the ape in us? Do we lose our starting point, the sun? Do we lose the allusion, the King Louie, the Mowgli, the bedtime stories, the etc? And what do we gain?

These are all big questions. These are all "I'm full of it" questions, preacher and homeless man questions. I guess what I'm saying is that the iPod, iTunes, Pandora, MySpace, Facebook, etc give each and every one of us the chance to create the illusion that we have a different orbit than everyone else, which raises the question Against Me! asks on their song "Up the Cuts," "With the instant availibility of information. And content so obtainable. Is the culture now a product that's disposable?"

I have no idea, but it keeps me up at night, just like Mick Jagger's words:

"Afterall, it was you and I...."
(that play the part of the killer)