I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: PRIMUS–They Can’t All Be Zingers (2006).

It’s funny to think of Primus having a greatest hits album, although they did in fact have some hits.

I always think it’s interesting to see what albums are most represented on Greatest Hits collections–did a band become popular later in their career or did their success fade after a time?  In this case, the early stuff is very well represented.

There’s nothing from Suck on This, which isn’t too surprising since pretty much everything has been re-recorded, but you get three tracks from Frizzle Fry (a great album that I would think would be hard to choose three songs from), three from Sailing the Seas of Cheese and three from Pork Soda.  You even get three from Tales from the Punchbowl (I wouldn’t have thought “Electric Grapevine” would make it).

As the end of the first part of their career came into view, we get only two songs from The Brown Album.  There’s only one song from the hated (by Les) Antipop and I feel like a conciliatory nod to the reunion EP with “Mary the Ice Cube.”  I would have rather them put “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” on the disc as their cover of that song is only available as a video on any official release.

Perhaps the most fun thing about this release is the packaging, which, yes, looks like processed cheese.

[READ: January 23, 2015] “The Ways”

This was a strange story to me.  It is about three older teens who appear to be living on their own in what I gather is rural Ireland.  The oldest brother (Nick) is out of school and is currently working, the two younger siblings are still in school, although the youngest brother (Gerry) is always getting in trouble and the sister (Pell) basically just stopped going to school once their father died.

As the story opens, Pell gets a call that Gerry has been fighting and has been suspended.  She hitchhikes and then takes the bus into the city (which is a dozen or so miles away) to pick him up.  On the bus some of Gerry’s friends recognize her and give a her a bit of hard time, but she gives back just enough–asking why those guys are not in class–they say they were off messing about for the morning.  It’s clear that Pell takes no guff.

The next section shifts to Nick while he’s on a cigarette break at work.  There’ a funny bit about his coworker, a Chinaman named Sean.  When Pell and Gerry show up at the restaurant, he gives them so free food and tells them to hold on.  He tells Pell that the next time, the school should call him at work.  When Pell says she tried to call him when the school called their house, but that he didn’t answer, he says that he won’t answer when they call him either, but at least Pell won’t have to deal with it.

Nick proves to have a head on his shoulders–he has stopped drinking and has really taken responsibility for his family.  He also knows when he can’t win, as with Pell.  He knows she should go to school, but he also knows he can’t make her, so he leaves her be.  We also see him take no guff from his neighbor.

Gerry meanwhile is home playing a video game.  We see Pell give him a bit of a hard time about the fight and we see Gerry feeling a little bad about that.

I enjoyed the way this story was told from each of the siblings perspectives (although always in the third person).  They each escape in their own way, although we don’t get all that close to any of them.  Nothing is resolved, and it is clear nothing would be anytime soon.  We don’t even know what got them in this situation.  It’s just an interesting look at a snapshot in the lives of three kids in a bad way.