May Media Journal

Rectify. [Season 1]. Creator Ray McKinnon. Gran Via Productions, 2013.

Maron. [Season 1]. Creator Marc Maron. Boomer Lives Productions!, 2013.

Rosin, Hanna. The End of Men: And the Rise of Women. New York: Riverhead, 2012.

Surviving Progress. Dirs. Matheu Roy, Harold Crooks. Big Picture Media Corporation, 2011.

Various Artists. Pump Up The Volume Original Motion Picture Soundtrack. MCA Records, 1990.

The Great Gatsby. Dir. Baz Luhrmann. Warner Bros., 2013.

Chinni, Dante and James Gimpel. Our Patchwork Nation: The Surprising Truth about the “Real” America. New York: Gotham Books, 2011.

Kaling, Mindy. Is Everyone Hanging Out with Me (And Other Concerns). New York: Three Rivers Press, 2012.

Bob Saget: That’s What I’m Talking About. Prod. Jay Chapman. New Wave Entertainment, 2013.

Loeb, Lisa. The Purple Tape. Furious Rose Productions, 2008/1992.

R.E.M. Live at the Olympia in Dublin.  Warner Bros., 2009.

Frank, Thomas. Pity the Billionaire: The Hard-Times Swindle and the Unlikely Comeback of the Right. New York: Picador Books, 2012.

Rotundo, E. Anthony. American Manhood: Transformations in Masculinity from the Revolution to the Modern Era. New York: Basic Books, 1993.

Indigo Girls. Live: Back on the Bus, Y’all. Sony Records, 1991.

Vampire Weekend. Modern Vampires of the City. XL Recordings, 2013.

Bly, Robert. Iron John: A Book About Men. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2004/1990.

Last Days Here. Dirs. John Argott and Demian Fenton. 9.14 Pictures, 2011.

Mad Season. Above [Deluxe Edition]. Sony Legacy, 2013/1995.

Sweet, Matthew. Son of Altered Beast. BMG Music, 1994.

Finn Brothers. Everyone is Here. Nettwerk Records, 2008.

The National. Trouble Will Find Me. 4AD Records, 2013.

Ryder, Mitch & The Detroit Wheels. Flashback With. Rhino Records, 2012.

Screwed. Dirs. Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski. Universal Pictures, 2000. 

Andrew W.K., Orpheum, Tampa, FL. 

April Media Journal

Kristen Schaal: Live at the Filmore. Dir. Ryan Polito. Voxruby Productions, 2013

Yo La Tengo. And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out. Matador Records, 2000.

Drivin’ N’ Cryin’. Songs from the Laundromat. New! Records. 2012.

Johnson, Merri Lisa. Third Wave Feminism and Television: Jane Puts it in a Box. London: I. B. Tauris Publishers, 2007.

Roth, David Lee. Skyscraper. Warner Bros., 1988.

Drivin’ N’ Cryin’. Songs About Cars, Space, and The Ramones. New! Records, 2012.

Screeching Weasels. Boogadaboogadaboogada! Lookout Records, 1992/1988.

Shameless [Season 3]. Creator Paul Abbott. Bonanza Productions, 2013.

Mahler, Jonathan. Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx is Burning: 1977, Baseball, Politics, and the Battle for the Soul of a City. New York: Picador, 2005. 

Hymowitz, Kay S. Manning Up: How the Rise of Women Has Turned Men into Boys. New York: Basic Books, 2011.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Fever to Tell. Interscope Records, 2003.

Newman, Randy. Randy Newman. Reprise Records, 1995/1968.

Your Highness. Dir. David Gordon Green. Universal Pictures, 2011.

Newman, Randy. 12 Songs. Reprise Records, 1990/1970.

Dark Horse. Dir. Todd Solondz. Double Hope Films, 2011.

Standing in the Shadows of Motown. Dir. Paul Justman. Artisan Entertainment, 2002.

The Black Dahlia. Dir. Brian De Palma. Universal Pictures, 2006.

Camper Van Beethoven. New Roman Times. Vanguard Records, 2004.

Finn, Neil. 7 Words Collide—Live at the St. James. Nettwerk America, 2002.

Louis C.K.: Oh My God. Dir. Louis C.K. Pig Newton, 2013.

Veep. [Season 2]. Creator Armando Iannucci. Home Box Office, 2013.

Saigon Kick. The Lizard. Atlantic, 1992.

Reel Injun. Dir. Neil Diamond. National Film Board of Canada, 2009.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Mosquito. Interscope Records, 2013.

Reynolds, Simon. Rip it Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978-1984. New York: Penguin Books, 2006.

McCabe, Janet and Kim Akass, eds. Quality TV: Contemporary American Television and Beyond. London: I. B. Tauris Publishers, 2007.

R.E.M. Live in Greensboro. Warner Bros., 2013.

The Flaming Lips. Terror. Warner Bros., 2013.

Newman, Randy. Sail Away. Reprise Records, 1990/1972.

Dawes. Stories Don’t End. HUB Records, 2013.

PressPausePlay. Dirs. David Dworsky, Victor Köhler. House of Radon, 2011.

Van Sant, Gus. Last Days. HBO Films, 2005.

March Media Journal

Sisco King, Claire. Washed in Blood: Male Sacrifice, Trauma, and the Cinema. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2011.

Rush. Signals. Mercury Records (1997/1982)

Lions for Lambs. Dir. Robert Redford. MGM, 2007.

Argo. Dir. Ben Affleck. Warner Bros., 2012.

Rid of Me. Dir. James Westby. Alcove Productions, 2011.

Indigo Girls. Nomads—Indians—Saints. Sony Entertainment, 1990.

Hatfield, Juliana. Only Everything. Atlantic Records, 1995.

Tommy James & The Shondells. More of the Greatest Hits. Compendia Records, 2006.

Atoms for Peace. Amok. XL Recordings, 2013.

Sugar. Beaster. Rykodisc, 1993.

The Escape Club. Wild, Wild West. Atlantic Records, 1988.

My Week with Marilyn. Dir. Simon Curtis. The Weinstein Company, 2011.

The U.S. vs. John Lennon. Dirs. David Leaf & John Scheinfeld. Lionsgate Films, 2006.

Smith, Elliott. Elliott Smith. Kill Rock Stars, 1995.

Jeffords, Susan. Hard Bodies: Hollywood Masculinity in the Reagan Era. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Thompson, Hunter. Hell’s Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs. New York: Ballantine Books, 1967.

The Paperboy. Dir. Lee Daniels. Benaroya Pictures, 2012.

eXistenZ. Dir. David Cronenberg. Alliance Atlantis Communications, 1999.

Soul Asylum. Candy from a Stranger. Columbia Records, 1998.

Phil Spector. Dir. David Mamet. HBO Films, 2013.

Crossfire Hurricane. Dir. Brett Morgen. Milkwood Films, 2012.

Johnston, Daniel. Continued Story. Hi How Are You. High Wire Music, 2006/1983, 1985.

Watson, Elwood & Marc E. Show. Performing American Masculnities: The 21^st Century Man in Popular Culture. Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2011.

The World According to Dick Cheney. Dir. R.J. Cutler. Showtime Docs, 2013.

Limelight. Dir. Billy Corben. Rakontur, 2011.

Review of The Wall

http://popblerd.com/2013/03/20/blisterd-the-100-best-albums-of-the-70s-part-seven/

Released one month before the end of the decade, The Wall is the ultimate in seventies prog-rock excess, neatly packaged for a mass audience. It is a concept album taken to its limits, replete with an extravagant stage construction, a theatrical production including an ensemble of dramatic characters, a full orchestra, and eventually a feature-length film directed by Alan Parker. Released three years after the punk rebellion against such pretentious endeavors, the double album scoffs at punk’s minimalism and is unapologetic in its excess and pretense. The genius of the album is that its ostensible narrative is one that challenges the ethos of arena rock and the barriers between musicians and their audience in the genre, while simultaneously luxuriating in those very excesses. The Wall brutally criticizes the very thing that it exemplifies. In “Outside the Wall,” the final track and narrative denouement of the album, Roger Waters offers a glimmer of hope and a call to arms after over an hour of despair, pleading that “the bleeding hearts and the artists take their stand.” This anti-establishment idealism was seductive enough for over thirty million fans to demonstrate their commitment to those ideals, and shell out twenty bucks to the Columbia Recording Corporation.

Review of Blood on the Tracks

http://popblerd.com/2013/03/21/blisterd-the-100-best-albums-of-the-70s-part-eight/

Nothing motivates Dylan to write a great song like estranged love. On Blonde on Blonde (1966), Dylan offered a handful of bitter tunes about erstwhile lovers, but Blood on the Tracks is a masterpiece of bile and vitriol. Dylan was going through a turbulent breakup with his wife Sara, and the subsequent resentment pours out of him on the album. On “Idiot Wind,” he suggests that there’s “an idiot wind blowing every time you move your teeth. You’re an idiot babe, it’s a wonder that you still know how to breathe.” However, the more subtle assholery of “You’re a Big Girl Now” demonstrates just how petulant, condescending, and patronizing one can be in public towards one’s spouse. In the hands of a less skillful songwriter, the line “I’m going out of  my mind with a pain that stops and starts, like a corkscrew to my heart ever since we’ve been apart” might seem like the schmaltzy drivel of a drama queen’s high school journal.  When Dylan sings it, however, his tongue is firmly wedged in his cheek. There is no hint of sincerity in his voice, and the listener knows that he does not believe her to be a “big girl” in any sense of the word. I’m not sure of the actual biography (Dylan is notoriously vague and misleading about his personal history); however, I doubt that Sara would have been able to take him back even after Dylan wrote a relatively sincere love song in her name on his next album, Desire (1977), released just twelve months later. The title of Blood on the Tracks evokes imagery of someone having been hit by a train. Ostensibly, the blood is Bob’s, but the album suggests that Dylan was at the helm.

Review of Born to Run

http://popblerd.com/2013/03/22/blisterd-the-100-best-albums-of-the-70s-part-nine/

According to legend, the title track of Born to Run was nearly declared the official song of the State of New Jersey. The irony of this legend (which seems to at least have some basis in fact) is of course that the song is about getting the hell out of New Jersey—“it’s a death trap, it’s a suicide rap, we gotta get out while we’re young.” The title track is an absolute masterpiece, and there may well be three songs on the album that I like better. Diehard Springsteen fans tend to like his three subsequent albums better—Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978), The River (1980) , Nebraska (1982)— but I always preferred Born to Run because of its sonic scope. Before he adopted his “stripped down” sound, he had to have something to strip down in the form of enormous soundscapes and theatrical melodrama that rival anything that Queen or Meatloaf offered. (It is no coincidence that two E Street Band members are musicians on Bat out of Hell (Epic, 1977)). This melodrama reaches its apex during the closing track, “Jungleland,” but the grandiose piano arpeggios of “The Professor” and the soaring sax playing of the “Big Man” in that song would not have their power without the album’s humble beginnings. “Thunder Road” starts with a harmonica and a simple piano melody. The lyrics are picturesque Americana: “The screen door slams, Mary’s dress waves. Like a vision she dances across the porch as the radio plays.” The movement of the album, both lyrically and sonically, from that porch to the urban chaos of “Jungleland” is enormous, but the question of whether crossing the river to the Jersey side was worth it remains unanswered.

Letter to The Editor--The Current

http://theonlinecurrent.com/letter-to-the-editor-paying-attention-to-diversity-on-campus/


At our most recent faculty meeting, President Eastman made the assertion that in order for Eckerd College to succeed in the long term, it needed to attract a body of students that more closely reflected the rapidly changing demographics of the United States.
Despite my inherent distrust of administrators, I was heartened and even inspired by an administrator who shares my aspirations for a more diverse campus and who is dedicated to the broader principles of a liberal arts education.
Two days after our meeting, Eckerd College prepared for its annual Family Weekend. As part of the weekend of celebration, the college proudly displayed a wide array of state and national flags in order to represent symbolically the geographical diversity of the college.
Included in the display of flags was the “official” state flag of Mississippi. While many of the southern flags still allude to the “Stars and Bars” in their flags, (Florida still maintains the red cross from its days as part of the Confederacy), Mississippi is the only state that still includes the entire flag of the Confederate States of America as part of its flag’s design.
By no means do I want to pick on the Magnolia State; however, I do want to suggest a disconnect between the admirable discourse that administrators at Eckerd College promote verbally, and the implicit discourses of racism, segregation and violence that proudly flying “rebel” flag evokes.
By raising the “Stars and Bars” in any form, Eckerd College runs the risk of discouraging certain students from applying to Eckerd or matriculating to this remarkable institution.
The flag potentially deters not only African Americans whose ancestors were directly affected by the horrors of the Confederacy and Jim Crow laws, but also students of all colors who are committed to the ideals of social justice and equality—pillars of the liberal arts principles that Eckerd vociferously promotes.
Supporters of the Confederate flag claim that the flag represents the “tradition” of The American South and not its brutally violent and racist past.
However, the flag has too much history to separate this history from its most visible symbol.
The swastika has a rich history in Indian spirituality; however, despite this history, the horrors of Nazi Germany remain deeply imbedded in the symbol. To those who are insistent upon the importance of “tradition,” I propose that Eckerd flies The Magnolia Flag in order to honor the “tradition” of the state through a sign that is much less wrought with the unavoidable baggage of the “Confederate Flag.”
If Eckerd truly wants to attract a broader swath of traditionally college-aged students, it should commit to being an international liberal arts college, and sever all ties to the “Old South” and no longer allow any version of the Confederate Flag in any official capacity on its campus.