I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: TOKYO POLICE CLUB-“Everybody Wants You” (2010).

Tokyo Police Club explained that they chose this song for their AV Club cover because they had no history with it. Of course they had only three songs to choose from in total. I have a history with this song–I loved it back in the 80s, and I still think the riff is pretty great.

The song is incredibly simple–just that riff and a chorus. TPC state that they’re going to have fun with the song.  And they do. TPC is known for their short, punky tracks.  So it’s no surprise that they start off playing the riff at what’s almost double speed.  They blister through the first two verses.  Then they slow things down for the final verse and keyboard solo.  For the outro they slow it down even further.  I kind of wish they’d have done an entire verse at that speed but oh well.

The cover feels like a Sonic Youth cover to me (could be that the lead singer looks (and sings) like Thurston Moore).  The only problem I have with the cover is that it’s very tinny.  The original riff was so bass heavy that this cover feels a little anemic.  Nevertheless, it’s enjoyable. And since I don’t listen to Billy Squier anymore, now I’ve got this version.

[READ: July 19, 2011] “Lost Limbs”

I don’t know anything about Vice Magazine.   I have to assume, given the look of the website, that the fiction here is more about the story than Literature.  It’s funny to me that Bradford appears so much in these slightly-off-the-usual-path-but-not-entirely-obscure locations.

From what I’ve seen of Bradford he really revels in the quirk.  In the introduction to this story, he admits, “I myself have a chronic circulation issue with my lower right leg and expect one day to lose that foot.”  I wonder what’s up with that two years later.

The story starts out amusingly: “It wasnt until my second date with Lenore that I discovered one of her arms was missing.”  She was wearing a reasonably realistic prosthetic on the first date and he is apparently not that observant.  On the second date she is wearing the claw-like prosthetic which is far more practical–this is when he notices her missing arm.

They date a few times but it doesn’t go very well.  She tells him about how she got the prosthetic (in a van accident).  But she doesn’t seem altogether truthful.  He fantasies about what sex with a person wearing a prosthetic would be like, but he doesn’t ever get to find out.  Rather, their relationship just kind of peters away.

Sometime later, the narrator has a new job throwing Christmas trees into a chipper. You can see where this is going.  Especially when a branch gets stuck and he pushes it in with his foot (see intro to the story).

Now the narrator needs a prosthesis.  And after he grows proficient with it, he decides to give Lenore a call again.  They meet each other for another date and that’s when the story really takes off.  From a story about love, rejection and loss, it suddenly turns into something of a scary, threatening story, especially when they stop by a house on a deserted road.

This is a pretty wild story.  The ending is funny, darkly so, although overall it was a little silly.