Thursday, May 29th, 2008
I got a new job so my last day at Gartner is tomorrow. My ultimate goal is to make sure no one but my boss knows that I am leaving and slip away quietly avoiding all of the annoying goodbyes from people that i dont even like. I cant even begin to imagine what any of them would write in a card. “Tom good luck at your new job. May your evil looks stay deliciously evil and may your sighs and groans of anger and dismay forever ring within the halls of this corporate rat trap. Keep in touch.” Maybe i will tell people. that card sounds hilarious. I will now be a manager at the Yale Bookstore. They are going to start me off managing the cafe, which is cool because i like coffee more than is probably healthy. Hopefully if a job in the actual bookstore opens up i will be primed to swoop in and take it. I suppose this is not my ideal job. One of the things is have learned while on this frantic I-need-to-get-out-of-Gartner-as-soon-as-humanly-possible-before-I-throw-my-company-issued-computer-out-the-window job search, is that i dont think i have a realistic ideal job. My ideal job is floating somewhere in the imaginary matter of my brain and thats cool i guess. However i know that i can be happy back working for the Barnes. If B Dalton hadnt closed i would still working there. I enjoy the atmosphere of a bookstore, how bookstores look and smell. It will be nice to experience that everyday instead of what i go through now which makes me want to vomit. I have never been able to adjust to Gartners line of work and the lifestyle that it tended to breed in people. I suppose its a character flaw and i am sorry for that but i just could never adjust. But things just got a little better today. I will let everyone know on Monday if things perhaps will start to get a lot better.
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Tuesday, May 6th, 2008
Expect a post in the very near future about why i havent been posting more often. Thanks for your patience. this came out today, or rather it came out two weeks ago on vinyl but was released on cd today for the “masses.” Under different circumstances i would call this record Elvis’s best record since his Burt Bacharach collaboration, Painted from Memory but because Elvis would like us all not to give a s#!t about this record I will only say that it is a all time album tainted by the most insanely pretentious marketing campaign in the history of music. I dont think anyone can argue that Elvis is one of the only relevant artists left from the era that birthed him. Some of these bands are still making records, some might be touring but they are not relevant. they are living trips down memory lane, tangible nostalgia but i repeat they are not relevant. Elvis on the other hand sits comfortably in the top 10 of the greatest song writers living, i actually think there might only be 10 great songwriters living and they are all in their 50s and 60s well except for Paul Westerberg but he doesnt really count anymore. So, instead of releasing this album with the fanfare and coverage that an album of this quality would usually get, he sneaks it onto the shelves of a few dozen record stores that still carry new vinyl and tells the press that he is looking for new an interesting ways to release his music. i dont see how releasing an album exclusively on vinyl two weeks before the cd release is either new or interesting. it is especially stupid because the story became the release process and not the album. Then to top it off on the eve of the cd release, Lost Highway, the label, or Elvis himself decided that again they would distract the press, reviewers and listeners with the preposterous notion that this record is in someway a collaborative effort with a long list of people that include Jenny Lewis from Rilo Kiley as well as the swiftness with which this album was created. “We wrote and recorded it in three weeks,” Elvis has been telling people making it seem that the album is in a kind of toss off an experiment in collaboration and nifty marketing. For the record no one but Elvis had any input into how these songs were written or recorded and if he is going to maintain that he did have help then i am going to assume that means he saying that Jenny Lewis and the rest of his so called “collaborators” have been secretly helping him make records since Blood and Chocolate. This is an Elvis Costello record through and through and it is a freaking great one. He mixes all of the best parts of all of his rock albums from Brutal Youth on, mashes them up into a sticky groovy paste and spread it all over this disc. every song here is fantastic in ways that Paul McCartney only wishes he could still accomplish. This album makes it clear that Elvis only songwriting peers are Tom Waits, Nick Cave, and Leonard Cohen. Throw Neil Young onto that list i you like, Neil hasnt made an album as great as Momofuku in 20 years but he still gives it everything hes got and his records are always interesting. Ive listened to this album twice already and im listening to it again as i write this and while i am in love with it i cant help feel angry and confused as to why Elvis would try to relieve himself of full credit for its creation and to portray this magnificent work as just a quickie meant to make a point about the music industry. i dont understand it. im all for trying different ways to get your music into the hands of the public but this is not the record to do that with. this needs to be forced down the throats of all the dumb asses that are listening to Daughtry and Maroon 5. This is song writing people. this is rock and roll.
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