I’m sick of all this criticism of the charts and graphs in the Republican budget plan. I thought the liberal media would be able to recognize the aesthetic reality we were going for. But obviously, I have to explain myself to you philistines.
Unlike the President, Republicans have no interest in the showy maximalism of Shepherd Fairey. The pop culture references, the retro-Soviet imagery, the cold, angular typefaces–ugh, it makes me cringe!
Have you read the President’s budget? It’s incomprehensible! What font did he use for this thing? I wouldn’t be surprised to see overlapping type in here, like some horrible early 90s music rag. I thought we were all over David Carson, but I guess some of us aren’t!
No, Republicans harken back to the sleek minimalism of Milton Glaser. Like “I Heart NY”, one of the most successful ad campaigns of all time. That art was such a perfect synthesis of simplicity and complication, it almost quelled the burning hatred I have for New York and all its out-of-touch liberal elites. And its hopelessly navel-gazing art world.
Is our art simple? I would ask, Is a line simple? It depends on where the line comes from, and where it leads to. A line means nothing, but a line means everything. I would think you would all know that by now.
I shouldn’t have to explain the Republican budget plan to you people. It should stand on its own, and if you had even the most rudimentary grounding in art and graphic design, you would know that!
God, I haven’t been this mad since I went to the last Matthew Barney exhibit!
For previous Inappropriate Walk Up Music posts, click here.
Every day until Opening Day, Scratchbomb presents three tunes that are completely, unequivocally inappropriate for use as major league walk-up
music.
These are not necessarily bad songs–although that
certainly helps. They are merely songs that don’t evoke the fear and dread one traditionally associates with the walk-up song. In fact, they evoke the exact opposite.
Imagine yourself in the on-deck circle. Bottom of the 9th. Down by one. Man on second, two out. You hear the PA system blare, The centerfielder, number 20… The crowd roars at the sound of your name. And as you stroll to the batter’s box, you are greeted with the strains of one of these songs:
* “Nothing Natural”, Lush This choice is a not-at-all-veiled excuse for me to post the video for a song I loved once upon a time. In the early 90s, just prior to the arrival of Nirvana, 120 Minutes was chock full o’ English shoegazer bands that I liked a lot (this would be the Dave Kendall years, not the Kennedy years). Mind you, I didn’t actually have cable at this time. I basically begged my more fortunate grandparents (who lived next door) to let me monopolize their VCR, for taping both this and Mystery Science Theatre 3000. They basically weren’t watching TV when 120 Minutes or MST3K were on anyway, and they trusted me to not tape anything porn-arific.
Lush would later mutate into a much more poppy outfit. Or did they want to be poppy along and did the shoegaze thing to fit in with the 1991 music scene? In either case, I like this version better. Sheets of noise, cooing vocals–kinda like a more aesthetically pleasing My Bloody Valentine (more pleasing to me, anyway).
* “Rubber Car”, Enon I loved this when it came out in the early Oughts. It’s like some mutant industrial Prince song. Haven’t really dug any other Enon tunes since then, but maybe that’s because this is so awesome taht everything else pales in comparison. I would love to see a stadium reverberate with RUBBA CAR!
* “Bumble Boogie”, LIberace I’m always a little suspicious when an artist passes from complete pop acceptance to universal derision. I think it’s defense mechanism put on by people who realize that they bought into something that’s no longer popular, so they have to be extra-harsh in their denunciation so no one suspects their Dirty Secret. Like Vanilla Ice, who’s a walking joke, even though he sold more than 10 million albums. Somebody bought them CDs, people.
Earlier case in point: Liberace. He’s a punchline nowadays for a million different reasons. But in the 1950s and 60s, he was HUGE. Like, Elvis and Sinatra Huge, just for a different audience. So to me, people’s reactions to him have less to do with opinions formed by actually listening to his music (since he’s not someone you exactly hear on the radio all the time), but by the collective embarrassment of, “Jeez, we liked THAT?”
Then again, having watched this video, I can’t say I blame people for covering their tracks. There’s just so much weirdness here. Like, turning “Flight of the Bumblebee” into a Fats Waller-style piano romp. And a fey, super-white guy doing a Fats Waller-style piano romp. And the out-of-nowhere emergence of a string quartet. It contains all the aggressive weirdness of something that has no idea how weird it is. Sadly, Liberace does not mention his brother George.
As this title implies, what follows barely qualifies as a review of the Mets’ new ballpark, CitiField, aka TARP Memorial Grounds at Bernie Madoff Stadium, which I visited on Sunday for its first event: a college baseball game betwen St. John’s and Georgetown. There are several reasons for this.
The first was my not-very-smart notion to bring The Baby with me. In an ideal world, she can say she saw the first ever game that took place at this stadium, if she grows up to care about such trivial nonsense (and if she grows up to care about trivial nonsense, she is definitely my daughter).
But in the real world, she’s two-and-a-half years old, at a stage where her every whim must be catered to or a complete thermonuclear meltdown ensues (and sometimes occurs even when her every demand has been met). So The Wife and I spent much of our time trying to stave off the inevitable freakouts. This left little time to make detailed observations.
Second of all, the stadium was clearly not quite finished yet in many respects. For instance, several large tile spaces in the Jackie Robinson Rotunda, which should have been filled with portraits of its namesake, were instead filled with slabs of sheetrock. Nearly all the concession stands were manned and serving customers–however, nearly all of them were either missing some of the juicier new food items promised to fans, or experiencing some kind of technical difficulties. I saw no fewer than three escalators out of service (I took this to be a subtle homage to Shea).
Finally, crummy weather depressed attendance to begin with, and most of the folks who showed up were clearly there to check out the new joint rather than see the actual game being played (myself included). So CitiField did not have the energy it would during a Mets game. An essential part of the fan experience is being around other rabid fans, high-five-ing complete strangers and second-guessing bullpen moves with them. In the absence of that atmosphere, it’s a stadium trip in name only.
For all these reasons, I can’t judge CitiField in any definitive way. I don’t think I could judge any ballpark unless I’ve been there at least twice, and under optimal conditions. But I did want to post some pics for the curious, and record my initial thoughts for posterity.
If I had to sum up the feeling of a Mets fan visiting CitiField for the first time, it’s akin to buying a brand new car. You got sold on all the new fancy features, but when you finally take delivery, you don’t know how to use half of them, and owner’s manual is no help, and this one light keeps blinking on the dashboard and you have no idea what it means. You figure that once you get used to the new car and learn how to use it better, you’ll love it, but for now you’re kind of nostalgic for the old beater you used to drive.
More pics and attempts at detailed analysis after the jump:
I’m sick of all this criticism of the charts and graphs in the Republican budget plan. I thought the liberal media would be able to recognize the aesthetic reality we were going for. But obviously, I have to explain myself to you philistines.
