SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-The Media Club, Vancouver, BC (October 22, 2004).
Every year, the Rheostatics would perform what they called Green Sprouts Week in Toronto. In 2004 they did a West Coast version. Five nights in a row at The Media Club. This recording is from the fourth night.
Once again, the recording quality isn’t great (although it’s better than the previous night’s). And once again the show is edited down (it’s barely 90 minutes–just long enough for a cassette).
It feels like perhaps Martin’s voice was hurting by this night. As an introduction he says, “I’m going to try to sing a song called ‘P.I.N.'” Even though most of the banter has been removed, there is a funny part with Dave talking via the cymbals (being very silly indeed).
They play the first version I’ve heard of “Here Comes the Image” with a very long synth solo.
They cover XTC’s “Radios in Motion” with vocals by local musician Paul Myers. They also play The Clash’s “London Calling” and while Myers vocals are great, Tim can’t seem to get the notes on the bass right.
Strangely, for an edited show, it accidentally repeats “Aliens” twice and leaves off “Fan Letter.”
The intro to “Stolen Car” gives Dave a chance to throw in an “obligatory Beatles reference” when he starts singing the words to “Norwegian Wood.” And the end is scorchingly good.
The final song is a fun version of “Legal Age Life.” It starts with him asking someone to blow into his beer bottle for notes. The song ends with a twist contest. And the prize is the new Sting CD, which they love mocking. They even joke that Sting has a song called “Stolen Car” but it has a parenthetical “(Take Me Dancing)” which makes it an entirely different song.
It’s another great fun night of Rheos music
[READ: July 14, 2015] Modern Romance
I was really excited to see this book in the bookstore. Although I like to keep up with new books, I had no idea Aziz had a book out. And since he is hilarious and other recent Parks and Rec folks have had hilarious books out I was prepared for a lot of laughing.
Well, it turns out that this book isn’t exactly funny. I mean it’s funny because Aziz wrote it, but it’s actually a sociological book about modern romance. Really. He has enlisted the help of NYU sociologist Eric Klinenberg and they have compiled and studied all sorts of data. They have sponsored panels and had discussions and really tried to discover how romance has changed in the last 50 or so years.
It sounds like it might be dry, but again, Aziz throws his snark and wit all over it so just as you get a little tired of statistics, there’s a funny joke about a rapper or some such. I mean any book that opens with “OH Shit! Thanks for buying my book!” has got to be funny right? (especially if you imagine Aziz saying it).
He starts by talking about how he was in contact with this woman Tanya and he invited her to go somewhere (via text). And he saw that she looked at the text but didn’t reply right away. And he came up with all kinds of reasons and second guesses and wasn’t sure what he should do and that got him to thinking about modern romance. And he states the obvious that this kind of texting behavior madness didn’t happen 20 or even 10 years ago. And I think we all forget that.
One of the major differences is that now people are searching for their soulmate. And that technology allows them to do this. He talks to some seniors and they all describe how they basically dated people in their building or on their block. They married people mostly to get out of their parents’ houses and hoped they would have a good life. For many women, the happiness didn’t come and they were possibly more unhappy than when they were at home. There’s an interesting pie chart (yes) which shows that in 1932 17.8% of Philadelphians married somehow who lived within 20 blocks, 9.62% married someone with in 10-20 blocks, 10% were within 4 to 10 blocks, 7% were within 2 to 4 blocks, 6% were within 1-2 blocks, 4% were on the same block and 12 % were in same building. Basically only about 17% of people married someone who wasn’t in their neighborhood. That’s astonishing.
Then he compares that to young people today who spend so much of their time on phones. For most people under 30, they are more likely to text a first date than use a phone.
Although as this little section illustrates, it’s not cut and dried:
“A phone call is the WORST” -female focus group participant.
“If you want to talk to me, you’re going to have to call me” -Another female focus group participant.
[dumbfounded] -every guy in that focus group.
The texting leads to a hilarious section about the modern bozo and it gives lots of screen shots of really bad texts like the one that just says “Afternoon sex ;)” or “hey what’s your bra size ;)” Or the one that is just a series of the word “Hey.” (You can read more of these on Straight White Boys Texting.
He talks about how good grammar is more or less like your appearance online. And how important is it. He then goes through a whole chapter about online dating. And how it shouldn’t really be called online dating, it should be called online meeting because you have to take it offline into the real world in order to have a real date.
Talking about all the new apps, epsecially Tinder and how that is such a bizarre concept compared to how people dated years ago. That a random guy could have literally 100s of options in his pocket at any time, unlike most guys even 20 years ago who were lucky to even talk to one person a week or even a month. But really as with cable, Tinder shows us that there are too many options and that with too many options, we tend to freeze up.
To make it more interesting (and to travel and eat delicious food) Aziz decided to investigate some different countries. He goes to Tokyo (and his reviews of ramen restaurants are hilarious). He also offers some great descriptions and photos of awesome Tokyo scenes. But he says that the main thing in Tokyo now is the rise of the herbivore man. With the decline of Japanese power, men have become kind of wimpy and are less likely to initiate interactions. Which makes women mad and more aggressive themselves. It was quite fascinating. Also that people might use a rice cooker for a profile pic (they don’t like putting photos of themselves online)
After a detailed section on romance in Tokyo he concludes with “At this point you are probably wondering what was my top meal in Tokyo.”
Then its off to Buenos Aires where the men are very aggressive and casual sex is everywhere–many people have a boy/girlfriend and a causal sex partner.
There is of course a section on snooping and cheating–that modern technology hasn’t actually made it easier to actually do that, it has just made it easier to set up opportunities to do it and made it easier to get caught at it. This leads to him looking at France where monogamy is not as sacred.
One of the final chapters looks at the highs of passionate love and how Companionate love grows the longer you are with someone. He also talks to Dan Savage about the monogamish lifestyle where there are multiple partners if both partners agree.
Ansari covers a lot of ground with this book. He admits right up front that there is no talk of homosexual partners because he book would be too unwieldy. He says that even with his limited scope he feels like he has left out a lot. And yet I feel like he has done an impressive amount of research for the book.
This book was not at all what I expected. And while I was a little disappointed at first that it wasn’t a comedy book, and I was also worried that after the first chapter I would find it kind of dry, Aziz really pulled through. His comments are very funny but the material presented is serious and also really interesting. If you care at all about sociological material as it relates to relationships and romance, this book is really quite insightful. And if you wondered how things are so different now than they were 20 years ago, this book is quite essential. And if you want to know where to go to a dinosaur themed hotel in Tokyo, this book is mandatory.
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