December 21, 2015

The Otter Lodge Year in Review – 2015

Retirement of the Year

David Letterman

To be clear, this award is meant to recognize a marvelous and distinguished career, not to celebrate the fact that someone’s going away. If it was, it would go to Floyd Mayweather. But Dave! Dave, Dave, Dave. I haven’t watched Letterman in years, but I will still miss him. In my opinion, one admittedly governed by the fact that I never saw Johnny Carson or any of the old timers work, thus essentially pitting Dave against only Leno and Conan for the title of King of Late Night…David Letterman was the King of Late Night. The best ever. As a kid I would force myself to stay up until 10:30 to watch Dave, eager to see utterly pointless and completely hilarious bits like “Bear in the Pool” or “Will it Float?” or the critically underrated series where he sent Rupert, the guy who ran the deli around the corner, out in Manhattan to torment innocent people. Letterman did stuff he thought was funny, and he didn’t give a damn if you liked it or not, and this was what made him the funniest late night host in the world.

Otter of the Year

Pup 681

I want this job.

Song of the Year

Hotline Bling – Drake

This music video has 226 million views. Please do not watch it. It’s not that the song is bad—hey, it’s our song of the year, after all—it’s just that it’s quite confusing. I’ve been watching Drake from afar for a while now, and have struggled mightily to understand his allure. The man is one of the biggest stars in music today, and yet his work is laden with question marks and paradoxes. The whole thing is a boondoggle!

What do I mean? Let me give you an example: in our song of the year, Hotline Bling—and again, please don’t listen to it, because it’s fucking terrible—it’s hard to tell if he’s rapping or singing. He sort of sits in this purgatory in between the two, doing neither well. Also, this sack of shit worldwide music sensation employs near constant voice modulation, i.e. autotune, but even with the help of the computers, his voice never approaches a tone that is pleasing to the human ear. What artistic choice! While I admit I lack the sophistication to appreciate any of Mr. Drake’s work, I also understand my limits as a critic, namely the ability to understand why anyone would willingly listen to this song. Our song of the year: Hotline Bling.

Album of the Year

3 – HoneyHoney

In contrast with our song of the year recipient, HoneyHoney’s 3—the best work to date from my favorite folk/Americana duo—favors more traditional musical elements like melody, harmony, and tune. First time I can remember that I haven’t been disappointed by a beloved artist’s new release. Buy it.

Film of the Year

Roar (1981)

Released decades ago, yes, but RE-released in theaters no one has ever heard of select theaters in 2015. This movie has zero script or plot; it’s just 90 minutes of lions destroying a house and trying to kill a family. It’s simultaneously terrible and excellent. The theater run is over and it’s impossible to find on DVD, but message me if you’re interested. I have a digital copy.

Author of the Year

Gillian Flynn

Enormously famous for the smash hit Gone Girl, Flynn is so hot right now. I’ve actually read all of her books except Gone Girl—I am so damn counterculture—but can reasonably assume that book is excellent, too, because all of her work is. The woman brings it. If you like raw, turbulent stories with a big dose of weird, pick up Dark Places and be terrified.

Internet Phrase of the Year

ALL THE FEELS

In the land of run-on sentences and total chaos over the usage of “you’re,” we’ve—against all odds—managed to dumb ourselves down even further. Yes indeed, the ‘ol internet is at it again, and the online deconstruction of the English language must be nearing completion. This year, we at the Lodge are recognizing the phrase “all the feels.” Generally written in all caps, this term is presumably used to describe something—a video, a song, a piece of writing, perhaps—that made the person in question experience an emotion. Or, if we’re to take it literally, every emotion. Joy, anger, sadness, hope, empathy, et al, all at the same time. Looking past the fact that this is impossible, it’s curious how fixated we are nationally on using language that makes us sound like developing toddlers. Even if we were to say something made us feel “all the feelings,” that would still be obnoxious, but at least grammatically correct. “All the feels” is intentionally wrong, and we use it not despite but because of that fact, as if speaking like a drooling child who struggles with the basics of language is some form of comedy, I guess? God send a plague.

Man of the Year

Bob Ross

This is Bob’s second consecutive Man of the Year award. He is love, embodied in the human form. We need more Bob, less…hell, less everything else. As we bask in the joyous observation of Christmas and Chanukah, let his words flow through you, my friends. Be the person Bob would want you to be. Alleluia. Allelu.

January 23, 2015

The Myth of Early Achievers

For Christmas, my parents gave me a book called Get Wise: Make Great Decisions Every Day, which was written by the pastor of their church, Bob Merritt. I would have considered this gift a backhanded attempt at intervention, but they also gave the book to their other sons, who all have wives/fiancees, retirement savings accounts, and generally more put-together lives than me. So I don’t think there was an underlying hint.

ANYWAY, I’ve been reading the thing and it’s good. As the title suggests, it’s basically an exercise in understanding that the things you consistently do determine who you are, and the value of seeking wisdom over other things. I’m getting a lot from it.

But then, once in a while, as often happens with these things, I come across something that makes me go something like:

“What? Is he serious? Who is this guy? What’s today’s date?”

Basically, I disagree. Disagreeing is one of my most prominent personality traits, so I suppose that isn’t a surprise, but disagreeing with a man of the cloth, who wrote the book your parents gave to you for Christmas in an act of good faith and definitely not a subtle hint at fixing your life priorities…well, disagreeing with that guy feels kinda weird. Am I allowed to do that? Does this make me an asshole?

I came across one such passage:

…Don’t waste your life. Get going. Get on the education path, work path, skill development path, healthy relationships path, and volunteer and internship path. Get off the aimless bar-hopping, hooking up, and waiting-for-your-real-life-to-start path…

Both my kids were working by age twelve gaining skills, making contacts, dealing with people, and getting a leg up on every kid who sat at home playing video games and drinking smoothies. At age twenty-six, my daughter, Meg, had her master’s degree in child psychology, a job in the public schools, and a marriage to a med student. At age twenty-five, my son, Dave, had his law degree, a law firm job in Minneapolis, and a marriage to a twenty-four-year-old engineer. All four went to college, played sports, worked as many jobs as they could, volunteered, got internships, and stayed sexually pure and spiritually grounded during their teens and twenties. Now they’re set up to build a great life in their thirties, forties, and beyond.

My Thoughts, Short Version

I disagree. Vehemently. Not with all of it, but most of it.

My Thoughts, Long Version

I’ve tried to build the Otter Lodge on one main principal; that it’s good for you to try different things, experiment, and generally wander a little bit, while at the same time leading a responsible life and pursuing what you want. Maybe you don’t know what you want in life, in which case the wandering part becomes even more important. You have to find out what you like – and what you don’t – before you decide what you want.

The problem I have with the highlighted passage is it places all the emphasis on achievement – early achievement, to be specific – and disregards the value of other life experiences, those that may not put a degree on the wall or create financial security, but that enrich the person and grow the spirit.

I understand what Merritt is saying; stop aimlessly drifting through the best years of your life and go do something. Get your shit together. Contribute things to the world. All that’s endorsed and encouraged here at the Lodge. But the way he goes about it, in a braggadocious “look how great my kids are” manner, is not only off-putting, it just…sounds terrible. I read the paragraph and think, “okay, what now?” That’s great your wonder-kids have their lives and careers all sewed up by their mid-twenties, but what are they going to do for the next sixty years? Are they going to travel, live different places, meet new people, make mistakes, try different life paths, and experience the gifts of a vast world? Maybe, but I doubt it. More likely, they’re going to work – a lot – for the rest of their adult lives, pop out more kids, and take them to JC Penney to get their pictures taken in front of that blue-gray backdrop. They’ll wear sweaters and bring casseroles to family functions, and stand around and talk about how great life is because they’ve achieved the things that count for success within a community confined by a narrow and limited worldview.

Maybe. I could be wrong. I probably am. But when I read that paragraph, that’s what I see.

My advice (and this is my blog so I’m going to give it to you whether you want it or not and that’s final)? Take a chance. Make mistakes. Explore. Learn – about yourself and the world around you. Be careful of ideas like staying “grounded” – these ideas are grown from good intentions, but can easily turn stifling. Why stay spiritually grounded? Why not fly amongst many spiritual thoughts and ideas, learn new ways of thinking, and gain the understanding necessary to find your truth? Don’t try heroin or anything, but have a beer once in a while.

A quest for perfection can only end in disappointment. That’s a fact. So fail. Fuck up. Date the wrong person. Take the wrong job. Accept it as part of life, learn from it, and do better the next time. You have your whole life to get it right. But some of the most important lessons are learned when you get it wrong.

He said Jesus walked on the water
And I know that it’s true
But sometimes I think that preacher man
Would like to do a little walkin’ too

– Charles Daniels (American Philosopher)

May 8, 2012

All Underrated List

We’ve discussed who is overrated; now it’s time to spotlight those who get no respect. The unsung greats, the geniuses toiling in obscurity, the hard working, blue collar, middle class of common thought. Yes, it’s time to talk about the underrated.

Now remember, this doesn’t mean these things are unknown; just that they aren’t given the credit they deserve. And again, they’re in no particular order. To the list!

Cauliflower

Cauliflower has long since been the bastard cousin of broccoli, and this is not okay. Broccoli gets all the spotlight because it’s green, and we’re obsessed with green food in this godforsaken hippie health-freak organic culture we’ve built ourselves, but cauliflower is healthy as shit too. It, as Wikipedia tells me, is “low in fat, low in carbs but high in dietary fiber, folate (which I think is a real thing), water, and vitamin C, possessing a high nutritional density.” Yep, nutritional density. Read it and weep, broccoli crusaders. It’s a damn ball of nutrition.

Plus, it’s a very versatile food. It has very little actual taste, just enough to keep it from being tasteless, and not too much to make it taste bad, which, being a vegetable, it almost certainly would, if it had more taste. Instead, this “minimalist taste” is delightfully usable, and lets you combine cauliflower with almost anything and get away with it. Seriously, name any dish and I can assure you that the addition of cauliflower will – at the very least – definitely probably not ruin it. And you can keep it simple too – even just combining it with melted cheese is a common favorite. It’s delicious and makes your fat ass not feel quite so bad about housing what is essentially a bowl full of cheese in a single sitting. Hey, no need to feel bad at all – it’s got nutritional density.

Silvertide

This is a band you probably haven’t heard of, and that’s not because I’m trying to pull some pretentious hipster shit on you. They were just never very well known, and didn’t last very long. Silvertide saw a small glimpse of fame in ‘04/’05 when their one barely-popular single, “Aint Comin’ Home,” was played very occasionally on mainstream rock radio. They might’ve released subsequent singles, but nobody really paid attention. And then they broke up – their career spanned one album.

Why am I telling you this? Because Silvertide f’ing rocked. That one album, Show and Tell, was 11 tracks of blistering, stupid, straightforward rock and roll, and that is something that was painfully absent through most of that particular decade. For me, it was an oasis in a desert of indie rock and easy listenings, and a godsend. They were my new favorite band.

Of course, it ended there, and was seemingly over before it started. There was no second album, as all the band members parted ways to form or participate in other projects, which uniformly sucked (trust me, I’ve checked). But I still listen to Show and Tell; it’s a naïve, underdeveloped, and massively flawed album, but maybe that’s okay. My musical tastes have changed, and I no longer cling to loud, frantic guitar licks and shrill vocals like I used to, but I can still see the good in an album like this. It falls somewhere between 80’s hair metal and modern day mainstream, wannabe rock, and that’s not a terrible place to be.

Bill Bryson

Based on how many books he’s sold I’d assume everyone on earth has heard of him, but that is apparently not the case. I stumbled upon his wilderness masterpiece A Walk in the Woods a few years ago and immediately adopted Bryson as my new favorite author. And not being one to shut the hell up about things, I of course told everyone about it, and was surprised to find a lot of people who hadn’t heard of him either. Well, regarding Bryson’s writings: if you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up. It is so choice. (And yes, you do have the means; your local library will have them, and I’ve recently found that libraries give out books for free. Not sure how they’re able to sustain this business model, but I plan on taking advantage until they wise up.)

Bill Bryson is smart, quick witted, hilarious, keenly observational, well-researched, and blatantly honest. Born in America (the great state of Iowa, to be exact), he moved to Europe and resided there for 30 years before finally coming back home. So right there, there’s something for everyone: the unashamed American nationalists who probably own guns, and the conceited, tea-drinking neck-beard people who are convinced Europe is “sooooo much more cultured” and better than America despite the fact that they continue to –and always will – live here. Both of these groups will enjoy Bryson – he breaks down walls.

The book in question, A Walk in the Woods, takes place just after his return stateside, when he attempts to “rediscover America” on the Appalachian Trail. Between his astute observations, lovable curmudgeon streak, and the fact that he is blatantly unequipped to hike anything, much less something as daunting as the AT, it makes for a great read.

Otters

Much like cauliflower, they’ve been the maligned stepchild of another creature for seemingly all of history. In the animal kingdom, the beaver seems to get all the credit, while the otter is routinely an afterthought. This is horseshit. Yes, beavers are much more hardworking and understanding of middle-class American values – it seems they never take a break from working on those dams, night and day. But that’s their flaw as well: beavers do not understand the work/life balance, and the singular goal of dam-building consumes their lives and gives them one-track minds. These beavers are not well-rounded individuals.

Otters, on the other hand, live life at a different pace. They aren’t concerned with dam-building, oil wells, gold mines, or real estate; they mostly go wherever the tides take them. Indeed, otters can usually be seen floating leisurely on their backs, cracking crabs on their chests and basking in life’s beautiful glow. Their priorities are different. Clearly otters, along with koalas, are the hippies of the animal kingdom. But unlike human hippies, who commonly have dreadlocks and poor hygiene, the animal hippies stay groomed and work when they have to. They just understand there’s more to life than building homes or constantly hunting. We could all learn something from the otter.

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