I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: MOXY FRÜVOUS-Live Noise (1998).

Live albums usually work as a “best of” and so, with Live Noise you get the crème de la crème of the Früvous catalog.  But, more than that, Früvous were amazing live.  I had the opportunity to see them once, and it was a fantastic show.

Just about every song I have mentioned in other reviews is here: “Michigan Militia,” “Horseshoes,” “Fly,” “King of Spain,” “Johnny Saucep’n” and “The Drinking Song” among many others.

They also do some interesting covers: Tom Wait’s “Jockey Full of Bourbon” and Talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer.”

And best of all, there’s a lot of between-song banter.  Interestingly, the banter is quite vulgar.  While Früvous is not a G rated band by any means, it’s a little surprising how many F bombs they drop (which is why it got a parental warning sticker).  But mostly they are funny bits, like the “Intra Pennsylvania Rivalry,” and the hilarious and factual crowd participation bit: “Lowest Highest Point.”

You can’t go wrong with this disc, it’s fantastic (although, I suppose I could do without the  second version of “King of Spain,” as it does go on a bit long), but aside from that?  Fantastic!

[READ: June 25, 2009] “Morality”

I’ve said a lot about Stephen King in the past, so I’ll just get right to the story.

I wasn’t sure if I was going to read this story or not.  I mean, it’s long, and I don’t jump at the chance to read Stephen King anymore.  But I read the first paragraph and I remembered why Stephen King is so popular, and why I liked him so much.  Whether or not he is a great writer or an artiste, he has a wondrous way with words.  With the first few paragraphs I was hooked into this story.  His prose is effortless, and before you know it you are engaged with the characters.

So, in this story, Chad is a “writer” working on a book about his experiences at his real job: floating substitute teacher.  The book shows promise but is nowhere near completion because he has so little time to work on it.  His wife, Nora, is a nurse.  She recently got a well-paying job as a home nurse for an elderly Reverend who has had a stroke.  She works steady hours and makes more than Chad.

But despite all of that, money is still tight, and their lives are on hold until they can each land something more lucrative.

And that’s where the morality issue comes in.  And we probably need to suspend our disbelief.  The Reverend has been a good man all his life, and has done nothing purposefully sinful. He tells Nora that he would like to do something sinful (no, not sex nor murder), but he feels too infirm to actually do the deed himself.

He offers Nora $200,000 to commit a sin by proxy.  (Because he asked her to do it, he figures his sin is two-fold, and Nora doesn’t really care about sin anyways).  I’m not going to give away what the sin is because it is not revealed until later in the story, and it’s worth the wait.

I will reveal that she agrees to it (because there would be no story if she didn’t).  And then she must live with the consequences.

The story was great, compelling and really rather shocking.

And then, I fear that it degenerated into some craziness.  Whether or not the behaviors that Nora gets up after the incident are reasonable or even realistic is debatable. It seems reasonable that she would have regrets about her actions, I’m just not convinced that they would go in the direction they went.

I feel that King went in a direction that is probably expected of him,, and in fact I felt that some of the violence in the end of the story simply felt like typical Stephen King.  I think if he were being less “Stephen King” this compelling story would have gone in a different direction, been much longer, and would have ended wonderfully.

Nevertheless, the story was quite compelling, if very disturbing.

For ease of searching I include: Moxy Fruvous.