Cutting the Cord Isn't Easy

I have had one goal in life for the past three years. I want to cut the cord with cable. Every year I get one step closer to doing it, only to back off. Three years ago I thought about it, then didn't do it. Two years ago I wanted to do it and looked at some devices that would get it done, but they didn't seem viable. Last year I kept looking into these devices but still felt the time wasn't right. This year I was planning on cutting the cord, and still may, but I keep running into the same issues this year I have run into before. I've looked into devices and gotten the pros and cons of each. It's just a matter of doing it, but then there is also the matter that it seems so hard. A friend sent me to this subreddit. Some of this shit is like Greek to me. I have specifications to cut the cord and there is no easy way to get it done at this point without having 3-4 devices.

1. No satellite or anything that has to be placed on the house. This is my wife's only stipulation.

2. I want my Braves games and all of the college basketball games I watch. This means I need local channels AND ESPN. Some devices have one but not the other.

3. I rarely watch anything live, so I need a way to tape my shows and watch them later. If I get rid of Time Warner Cable then that means I need to find a device that tapes shows. I have found a few, but they don't seem to have the capability of the DVR I currently have.

4. I need children channels as well. The kids gotta watch something on television.

5. I still need to pay for Internet, which isn't cheap. I can find shows on premium channels online and find a way to watch those if I need to.

The problem is there isn't really a device that delivers all of this content in one package. Roku doesn't have the local channels I need, plus I have to purchase apps on Roku which would drive the price I pay even higher. Throw in having to purchase a recording device for some of the content I want to watch and getting rid of one cable box has turned into a 2-3 device affair with no guarantee it will meet my television needs.

My cable bill isn't as bad as the bill others would pay. So I don't think I have it worse than others. I simply hate Time Warner Cable and am tired of their shitty customer service. It's only going to get worse. It's already bad enough when I call their customer service line I explain what I want and the representative won't listen to me. I explained a couple months ago I do not want premium channels, wanted to cut my bill and needed a quoted price for that. What they came back with was MORE premium channels and an INCREASE in what I pay. Really? Then what followed is I was referred to a retention specialist who then decided that he can give me a deal that includes a free three month trial of EPIX with a slight decrease in monthly cost. I told him I want fewer premium channels and was told that it's actually cheaper to have more channels. Of course it is.

Finally, I bitched on Twitter and got TWC to respond and they had a representative call me. This was February 13. Unfortunately when she called I was in a meeting and when I called her back I left a message. I'm still waiting for a call back. They don't care though. They know it's not easy to cut the cord. Why call me back when there are so many other customers who they can screw over by sending a massively high bill to in an effort to get them to call and re-negotiate their cable bill? That whole thing of sending an incredibly expensive bill to a customer in an effort to get them to negotiate is the sign of a horrible business practice. I can't wait until cable companies go out of business and the public can piss on their ashes.

I looked into Roku and then would get a subscription to either Netflix or Hulu. Great. Unfortunately, what am I going to do about the sports I want to watch? Well, I could get the Slingbox for $20 and then upgrade for $5 per month. So now I have two devices and am paying for Internet. I do want to watch Braves games, so a subscription to MLBtv is required and there is a slight chance that the Braves will be blacked out in my area. Then there is the issue that I have a television in my bedroom too, which means I will need to buy two Roku's. Not a huge deal, but it's an upfront cost.

So say I have decided that I am cutting the cord and get Roku. Now I have to decide if I want Amazon Prime, Netflix, or Hulu Plus. Each has their own positive and negatives. Hulu Plus is the only one with recent seasons of shows ready to be watched a day or two after they air. Netflix has a ton of movies. Amazon Prime has a good selection of shows, plus offers free shipping on items purchased from Amazon.com. There are more decisions to be made at this point and another monthly bill that has to be paid. It's another upfront barrier to cutting the cord. Even if most of these services are month-to-month, I prefer to be in a situation where I know what service I'm buying, even on a month-to-month basis. That's not realistic in this situation.

It's not that I am lazy or don't want to cut the cable. I hate cable companies. I despise them for their greed, inability to adapt to what consumers obviously want (which is to choose the channels they get and pay for them based on what they want), and general disregard for their customers. Their customer service agents don't listen and then try to justify the jacked-up prices by explaining that they are providing NEW AND IMPROVED services! My Internet can now be faster! I don't want that. I don't want faster Internet. Mine works just fine.

So I am about to go through this song-and-dance with Time Warner Cable again. I'll probably bitch about them on Twitter and then some "retention specialist" will call me and we will try to work something out. If cutting the cord were easier for me, I would do it in a heartbeat. It's too complicated with too many unknowns at this point. I hate Time Warner Cable, but there is no "cutting the cord" option that will allow me to flip channels between local sports and ESPN. I can't find one.

I can deal with the learning curve, but cutting the cord requires making choices and sacrifices that just having cable doesn't require me to worry about. What's worse is I still have to have an Internet connection to use Roku, so I'm not totally done with the evil cable companies. I still want to cut the cord and I still am going to try and do it this year. It's so hard to wrap my mind around all the options I have. There are layers of options to get through once I have cut the cord and I don't feel technologically advanced enough to make this decision right now. I wish I could. There is always the concern that getting me to the point I want to be will push my cable bill right back up to where it was with Time Warner Cable.

One day, a company will come along and make things easier for the consumer. I can't wait to see Time Warner Cable and other companies lose even more customers when that day comes. Ten years from now the idea a cable company would jack up the price of a service in an effort to get you to call them and re-negotiate will hopefully seem as ridiculous in reality as it seems in my own head. That's the dumbest business move to make, piss off your customer in an effort to get them to stay with you? But right now, the common person will struggle to cut the cord. It requires so many decisions to be made and to further complicate the television-watching life of a family. Cable still has the consumer by the balls, but that will change once cutting the cord is made easier for the common person or more complete knowledge about the options once the cord has been cut is available. For example, if I cut the cord, these are the options I have if I like certain shows, sports, and movies. It's all still a little fuzzy now.

It's hard for me to make a decision because I feel like I don't have complete information on how to make the decision I need to make to cut the cord. I read subreddits, do Google searches to make it easier on me and I become further confused. It's all a cable conspiracy I'm sure. Suggestions to resolve my confusion or new curse words to pass along to Time Warner Cable are always welcome.

Herein Lies My Problem

There are so many times in a given week that I think of a topic to address on this blog and then never actually do it. I'm always away from a computer when I think of these topics too, which is quite the accomplishment given that I am very rarely ever more than 100 feet away from a computer, and I will think, "Damn, that's a good topic to write about. Remember that one and formulate an outline of what you want to write." Then..................nothing. I forget or the topic doesn't seem as interesting after a little bit of time or I don't feel that connection to the topic anymore. It tortures me to have this blog and not update it at least weekly. I am a person who does things 100% or I don't do them at all.

There is also the inner struggle I feel that I really don't think anyone gives a shit what I have to say (and no, I don't need anyone to tell me they care...I don't seek validation at all). On the other blog that I update constantly, I always refer to the phenomenon of how sports writers think because the readers care about the sports-related topic they write, then the readers care about the writer as a person too. This leads to a lot of personal stories that populate the writing that is usually about sports. I notice this a lot and I don't want to be one of those people. Not that anyone cares what I write there, but I separated the two blogs for a reason. I wrote something really personal over on the site a long time ago (and reprinted it here) and I really enjoyed writing it, but it felt really out of place. So I don't want to turn into a navel-gazing asshole who posts "Look at all my deep thoughts" on his blog. So therefore a lot of stuff goes unwritten on this blog. For example, my daughter almost choked to death on Chik-Fil-A one night when I was alone with her back in November. It was fucking traumatic to where I talk about it all the time, which is my way of dealing with it. I have thoughts on this and it's a pretty interesting story...to me. I didn't appreciate how it was handled by the nurse on-call at her doctor office. She acted like my daughter was coughing a bit when in reality I had to turn her over and slap her on the back to remove the food from her throat. To everyone else this is interesting, maybe, maybe not. I just don't want to be one of those people who just assumes everything that happens to me is interesting, but then I do have this blog, so obviously I care to mention these things that happen. I just never do.

Some of my stories are fun, some things I haven't sorted out at all to where I can write about them here. So between the things I find interesting that I don't know if others do because I don't want to be that guy who assumes because people read my other blog they care to read this one (but then, that was the purpose of the separate blog, those who want to read personal shit can visit), between the topics that just feel like too much navel-gazing, the topics that I haven't sorted out yet to where I can write about them, and the things I forget to write, there is a lot that goes unwritten here. Throw in a lot of my time I spend on the other blog I write and I feel like a failure. Which sucks since all of this writing is completely voluntary. I hold myself to a weird standard to churn out material as much as possible.

So in summary, I feel like a failure because I don't update the blog I am not totally sure people care to read even though I started this blog on a separate site from my other blog specifically so those who do care to read my more personal stories and thoughts can do so. Also, I don't want anyone to think I think others care about what I write simply because they may read what I write on another site. I am not dominated by self-doubt, so no worries. I have a tough time being open and sharing my thoughts. So my goal is to just write. Just fucking pick something to write about and write.

The first thing I want to write about is how this blog got it's name. It's more interesting than that very non-exciting tagline made it sound. Maybe I'll manage to write this post in the next four months.

Someone Should Bury Florida Georgia Line's Music in a Time Capsule and Never Dig It Up

I can usually deal with a lot of music that I don't like. For example, I've never heard but a few Taylor Swift songs and I haven't ever heard "Let It Go" from "Frozen." I'm lucky in that way that my son doesn't like crap like that and my daughter is too young to like it. Bad music is just a part of life. I find the band (band? group? duo?) Florida Georgia Line so offensive on so many levels that I can't even handle hearing their music and not being irritated by it. If you don't know who they are, please stop reading so you don't get irritated too. They are a terrible, terrible "country" band. They aren't even a band really. They are two dudes who aren't talented enough to be rappers and aren't talented enough to write pop songs, so they throw some twang in their voice, absentmindedly strum some guitars, turn up the Auto-Tune and roll in the cash of aimless morons who think this is country music...or even music. It's not. Florida Georgia Line is nothing but background noise for a life lived in a beer commercial. Here is their hit "Cruise," which if you can tell me what is country about this then you are a better person than me.

The remix even features Nelly! I won't link that because there's no need to bring Nelly into this discussion. Their music speaks to the lowest common denominator of music fan. These are some of their song titles from the two albums they have miraculously gotten money from a record company to record:

Get Your Shine On

This is How We Roll (here's the video!)

And yes, that video starts off with them picking up hitchhikers and having a party on top of a rig. Because, that's fucking COUNTRY! Okay, back to the song titles...

It'z Just What We Do (yep, spelled that way...because that's fucking COUNTRY!)

Hell Raisin' Heat of the Summer (they have a severe dislike for proper punctuation using apostrophes...why? That's fucking COUNTRY!)

Tip It Back

Dayum, Baby (I mean, it's not even a joke. That's a song title from these mental midgets)

Party People

Sun Daze

Dirt (Otherwise known as "Where this album should be buried"...here's the video!...it's a love song about dirt. Why dirt? Because that' fucking COUNTRY! It's farmin' man!)

Sippin' on Fire (again, proper punctuation with apostrophes isn't COUNTRY like these guys try to be)

Bumpin' the Night

Like You Ain't Even Gone

Those are the song titles. What's most irritating about them is an endless list, but here's my partial list.

1. Their name- It's a stupid fucking name. Bottom line. No way around it.

2. They are not country music. I'm not interested in getting into a traditional v. non-traditional country music discussion. I'm not a huge fan of country music, but I do own a good amount, and this isn't country music. It's played on country music stations because it sounds country enough to get advertisers' money and ears listening to that certain country music radio station. It's bro-country, which is basically country music for those individuals who lack enough talent to make it in another genre. There's rarely been a more apt description than to call them the Nickelback of country music.

3. These guys don't have talent. They don't write their own songs. Well, they co-write them, but they have professional songwriters come in and make it sound 10% less shitty. They can't sing because their songs are Auto-Tuned all to hell. If you can't sing country music, then it's time to take that job at Arby's, because you are not a very good singer. Country music doesn't require a ton of talent to sing, though there are really great singers who do sing country music. Basically, you shouldn't be Auto-Tuned to sing country music. They don't even really play instruments. They strum the instruments to give the appearance they are playing, but they are simply playing some rhythm part that is barely noticeable.

4. The music. It's music dedicated to good times and living the COUNTRY life that they know morons will purchase in the hopes of reliving those wild nights out in the country they have never had. If Taylor Swift's music is that of a girl yearning for someone to love her, while pretending that she doesn't want love, Florida Georgia Line's music is the music of that girl who just let the cute guy in the hat standing outside Wal-Mart screw her in the bed of a truck and wanting to pretend he's the one who really loves her while he's bro-ing out with his friends bragging about that's how he rolls.

5. Again, the music. It's elementary, it's not really deep and it's not really even that complicated. It sells, so that's good, but there's nothing really good about it. It rhymes, it gets people to hold their Bud Light in the air and remember the good times of hanging out at the lake all day, and sells the good life to people who seem to really want the good life sold to them.

I'm not trying to be hater. Wait, yes I am. Florida Georgia Line is all that is wrong with the modern state of music and country music. It's over-produced crap where talent is set aside for production skills and two marketable looking guys who are more interested in their image than they are in their music. That sad part is their image is of two guys who aren't afraid to have some fun 90% of the time, but get really serious about dirt. If you are the type of person whose dream is to stand on a big rig and sing about "how you roll," then this music is for you.

Best and Worst R.E.M. Albums

I find R.E.M.'s discography to be fascinating. It's most likely because I have really liked their music for most of my life, but their discography is very interesting to me. It's full of experimentation, whether it be ideas that really worked or ideas that didn't work at all, and through this experimentation they still maintained the "R.E.M. sound." What makes their changes in sound most interesting is they were always a working band. They longest they went between albums releases was four years, between "Around the Sun" and "Accelerate," and in a span of seven years released five albums (this was at their peak by the way...when they could have toured and counted their money instead of making new music) that went from pop-rock, acoustic-rock, grunge, a road album, and finally their attempt at being Radiohead. It's a bi-polar discography, especially considering they spent most of the 80's as the typical college band that made it big.

It's a cliche to say they spent most of their career going against the grain. It's also not true, but they were making jangle rock in the 80's when hair band music was popular and spent part of the 90's pulling what I call the "Rolling Stones fuck you we can do what you do better than how you do it" move. What I mean by that is the Stones (in my opinion) had a habit of taking a popular form of music during an era and putting out an album that shows they can do that music better. The Stones put our "Some Girls" which was an obvious answer to disco and the sort of New York punk rock at the time, they answered the country rock trend in the late 1960's/early 1970's with a string of four albums that were as good as anything "real" country rock bands put out, and of course there was the "Satanic Majesties Request" album which wasn't that great and was a friendly answer to the Beatles "Sgt. Pepper's..."

R.E.M. was sort of drifting and doing their own thing with "Out of Time" and "Automatic for the People" when the grunge phenomenon hit. They decided it was time to put out their rock album they had promised for years and showed they could do grunge pretty well too. They then tried to combine their early 90's sound with the grunge sound on the next album to mixed results. Then in 1998 after their drummer, Bill Berry, left the band they decided they would do some electronic-sounding music like Radiohead was putting out at the time and I fell asleep so I'm not sure how that ended up (I'm kidding). It was pretty fucking dreary. So in a nutshell this is what makes R.E.M.'s discography so interesting to me, that they spent part of their career chasing what was popular in mainstream, another part going away from what was popular, but started out creating a sound that would become popular in the mainstream. Any time I listen to early Strokes albums I feel like I can hear the R.E.M. influence in the way the guitar sounds and how the vocals are unintelligible.

So I figured because R.E.M.'s discography was so interesting and varied I would rank the albums. #1 was the easiest one for me. It's one of my "desert island" albums. The rest weren't so easy because some albums had really high peaks with filler and other albums had fewer high peaks but less filler. That's probably true for nearly every album I guess. So here goes. I'm going in reverse order until I get to the R.E.M. album I consider to be #1. I rank these albums essentially in order of which albums I would most want to hear from the first to the last track. How good is the album as a whole if I am tied to a chair and forced to listen to the whole thing? That's how I rank them. It's all relative too. A low-ranked R.E.M. album is better than some other bands' high-ranked album.

These Albums Just Aren't Good

15. Around the Sun

Oh, this album. It's easy to tell in retrospect when a band's album is probably the worst. When band members are like, "Oh yeah, we almost broke up after making that album" or "We specifically made further albums before breaking up to prove that we were better than this album." Those were paraphrased quotes from R.E.M. members about "Around the Sun." Oh, and Peter Buck (the guitarist) said "it wasn't listenable" and they were "bored with the material." That's the material THEY WROTE by the way. So yes, this album deserves to be in the very bottom of any R.E.M. album list based on these quotes alone. Unfortunately, the music backs up these quotes.

I think the song titles on this album are a meta-criticism of the music they were making. Some of the song titles are Make it All Ok, The Final Straw, I Wanted to be Wrong, Boy in the Well, High Speed Train, and the Worst Joke Ever.

If those titles aren't the sign of a band crying out for help then I don't know what titles would be. To be fair, Leaving New York and Electron Blue are decent songs, but this album just isn't very good overall. It's a slog, it's slow and the song writing isn't as crisp as any other album in their catalog. It's the typical late-career album where a band simply is mailing it in. There's very little crispness and fight in the songs, which aren't characteristic of an R.E.M. album and probably is a reason why their next album came out with songs that are fast and punch hard immediately. I would like to talk more in-depth about this album but there's really not much to say. It's a drag and if anyone starts their R.E.M. collection with this album then they will never understand what's great about the band. It's like handing a copy of "Undercover" to someone who wants to hear a Rolling Stones album or give someone looking to get into Bon Jovi a copy of any album they have made in the last 20 years.

(Though as an aside, I almost always recommend a certain band's second-best album to those looking to get into that band. I learned that lesson from buying a band's best album and then buying their other albums only to be disappointed the other albums don't measure up to that one. If you recommend a band's second-best album then it's still good, but there is somewhere to go but up from there...speaking of "Up")

14. Up

It's interesting this album is called "Up" since it's the first R.E.M. album that really was "down." What I mean by that (and not just being cutesy) is this is the first R.E.M. album without Bill Berry and the first album that consists of slower songs which tend to meander. This album isn't bad, but it's clearly the sign of a band that is lost. They tried to be Radiohead and use some more electronica in their sound. They even hired Radiohead's producer to work on the album. The problem is Radiohead may not always play upbeat music but playing weird electronica isn't what R.E.M. does well. What comes off as creative when done by Radiohead comes off as meandering and aimless when done by R.E.M. It's not a criticism of them, because if Radiohead tried to do jangle pop or an album of mostly acoustic tunes I don't believe they could pull it off.

What's most frustrating about "Up" is even the good songs on the album sound like R.E.M. trying to sound like someone else. Daysleeper is a mid-tempo song that sounds like R.E.M. doing a cover of an R.E.M. song, At My Most Beautiful is a rip-off of a Beach Boys song and sound without adding anything that makes it sound like R.E.M., while Lotus again sounds like an outtake from "Monster." The amount of aimlessness on this album is astounding and I chalk it up completely to Bill Berry's absence. R.E.M. always had a very collaborative approach to music and without a permanent drummer it seems the urge to let the songs wander overcame them. Songs 6-14 consist entirely of wandering music that doesn't seem to know when to end. One of my favorites on the album, Why Not Smile, would have been perfect as a sub-3:00 minute melancholy tune, but instead has a fade out that lasts for almost a minute and a half.

It's like the band decided there's really no need for instrumentation and they would just let Michael Stipe's voice carry them. No offense to Stipe, but he's a great vocalist in the concept of a band (which is why I give him total credit for never going solo...he gets that he's great because the people behind him are great and he can't carry a band by himself, which is a lesson Richard Ashcroft had to learn the hard way) and a focus on his vocals helps the listener recognize the lyrics aren't always strong and focused. It's amazing how a little instrumentation can make average vocals sound better (see: Van Halen during the David Lee Roth era) and while Stipe is certainly not a weak vocalist or songwriter, an entire album of his thoughts without a strong melody starts to call out his weaknesses as a songwriter.

The Highlights Don't Overshadow the Lowlights

13. Green

I recognize the next three albums probably are people's favorite albums or there is a belief they should not be ranked so low. It's just how I feel. I like "Green." I really do. There is some strong material on here that looks great on a Greatest Hits album or stands alone as a single. It's just taken as a whole, there is a lot of filler, and put all together the album isn't as strong as some of the individual highlights. It's difficult to explain. I like many of these songs individually, but when put together they sound very fluffy and meaningless, which isn't something a strong R.E.M. album should sound like. I think this record was intended as a reaction to the more political and focused "Document." Except, this album was political too. It's a weird dichotomy to go from light pop ditties to songs about war and Agent Orange. 

Three of the first four songs are the simple pop ditties that I enjoy, but are also the reason I wouldn't consider this to be a great album. Stand, Get Up, and Pop Song '89 are good tunes but not the sort of tune I want to hear followed by a few more political songs. It was like the band was saying, "Hey, we are political but we can be fun too!" and they never quite got the combination right. This was their first major label release so I'm sure Warner Brothers probably didn't get a hard-on for a bunch of songs about war and vague-sounding critics of politicians. They wanted "It's the End of the World As We Know It" because that's a fun fucking song. Do that again! So they did try. But being a band that likes to control their own destiny they also put World Leader Pretend, Orange Crush, and Turn You Inside-Out on the album as well.

The highlights of this album, which I consider to be 7 of the 11 tracks, should overshadow the lowlights and move this album up in my rankings, but they don't flow for me. The album was originally going to be a side of harder material and a side of softer material (this plan was thrown out) and what resulted was an album where it wasn't entirely clear what the band wanted to be. The second side of the album is a great example of this problem and that's where most of the filler from this album comes from. The first side doesn't flow well for me and the second side is filled with filler. Maybe better sequencing would have corrected this (for example, I've always hated Orange Crush being the 7th track, it seems the track was buried there in order to prevent listeners from just rewinding the first side constantly), but the individual tracks don't make a great album.

12. Out of Time

I have an incredibly difficult time being impartial about "Out of Time." It sold over 18 million copies, so clearly someone liked it, but it absolutely drives me crazy. The entire album does. You can tell by now I don't like R.E.M. albums without a central theme, but "Out of Time" is the worst of the worst and the only reason it's ranked above "Green" is because the best tracks on this album are some of the best stuff the band has ever written, even though there is less of it. This album was R.E.M.'s attempt to be a strong pop band and it worked. There are five songs on this album that would have fit in perfectly with "Automatic for the People" and are indicative of the band's strengths and then there is stuff like Radio Song, Shiny Happy People, Me in Honey, Low, and Endgame that I consider to be pretty much shit songs that only serve to get the band on the radio and speak to the lowest common denominator.

Then there is Losing My Religion, Country Feedback, Near Wild Heaven, Texarkana, and Half a World Away that are some of the best songs that the band has ever written. Tracks 8-10 (Half a World Away, Texarkana, and Country Feedback) are one of the strongest three song stretches in the band's catalog and sets up the band for their (spoiler alert) masterpiece album that came out a year later. It's good music and highlights the band's ability to create atmosphere in a song. Not coincidentally, two of the tracks on this album are sung by the underrated Mike Mills and he does a bang-up job with both of them. The highs on this album are really high, but there is some junk to be waded through in order to get there.

The line that begins Half a World, "This could be saddest dusk I've ever seen, turn to marigold..." and the ad-libbing of Country Feedback where Stipe ends up repeating "It's crazy what you could've had, I need this..." over and over just can't make up for the pop crap of Shiny Happy People and Radio Song (which is probably why some people bought the album). "Out of Time" is a great example of how the best music doesn't necessarily mean album sales. If someone started an R.E.M. collection with this album it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, but I have a feeling after some time the bloom would be off this rose.

11. Fables of the Reconstruction

This was the second R.E.M. album I ever purchased. I still don't think I completely get this album. It's not bad, there's just not a lot of great songs on the album and there is an overall feeling of drab to the album. It's definitely a more experimental album for them and was probably worth recording simply so the band could start to test the limits of their sound. Feeling Gravity's Pull is a slow, weird way to start off the album. It's not a death-knell to start an album off with a slow song, but it's almost five minutes long and doesn't feel like it necessarily goes anywhere.

The middle portion of the album like Drive 8, Life and How to Live It, Green Grow the Rushes Grow, and Can't Get There From Here are the highlight of the album. Again, this is a grading scale that acknowledges this is basically R.E.M. albums being compared to each other. It seems like there are 4-5 really good songs on the album and the rest are just album filler that aren't some of my favorite tracks. The energy wasn't quite there on this album and this may be due to the increased use of different instruments not melding well with the band's sound. It could also be "the difficult third album" effect where bands want to do something different on a third album and aren't quite sure exactly how to take their sound in a different direction.

There is a dark tone to this album that I'm not sure the band was entirely able to work into the confines of their current sound. They did a much better job on the next album and on future albums in taking a different sound and trying to put together a group of songs that aren't loud, but aren't dreary.

The Album That's Not Overly Bad, Just Hard to Get Through

10. New Adventures in HiFi

This album frustrates the shit out of me. It's a long album at almost 66 minutes and seems to be the band's attempt at a "road record." The problem is it's a road record that stays around too long and has a tremendous amount of filler on it. Unlike Jackson Browne's "Running on Empty" where he seemed inspired by being on the road, R.E.M. seems just tired and the songs reflect it. Of course they had just gotten off the "Monster" tour (where I saw them in Charlotte) and everybody in the band seemed to have gotten sick at one point or another, so there's a good chance they were tired. It's not good to put out a road album where the songs seem weary from the road trip and the songs become a slog due to this.

There's a lot being juggled on this album. The songs are a step back from the reverb-feedback sounding "Monster," but still contains the basic sound on some tracks, while also trying to get some of the mellow vibe the band had on "Automatic for the People," all while writing a road album. It's too much. So what results is an album of good songs, but it runs out of steam and even the good songs hang around too much. I love E-bow the Letter but does it have to be over 5 minutes long? The synthesizer effect on Leave is great, but 7 minutes of it isn't so great. New Test Leper has Michael Stipe singing in an octave below his normal voice (either that or he is really, really tired...and he sounds really, really tired) but it goes long as well. It does have a good organ part.

This would have been a much better album if the tracks were cut down into a real road album and the sequencing were changed. Here's the track listing I would have chosen for this album:

1. Leave (cut it down to below 7 minutes)
2. New Test Leper (cut it down)
3. Wake Up Bomb
4. E-Bow the Letter (again, cut it down a bit)
5. Bittersweet Me
6. How the West Was Won and Where It Got Us
7. Departure
8. Be Mine
9. So Fast, So Numb
10. Electrolite

It's shorter and even if the songs aren't cut down the album won't be such a drag to get through. I thought Leave would have been a great way to start the album and Electrolite is a great way to end the album. It's just there is too much mediocre music that takes too much time to listen to. It's just not a fun album to go all the way through.

9. Collapse Into Now

This was the band's last album and it's not a good thing and it's not a bad thing. They went out like a lot of bands probably would like to go out, on an album that wasn't terrible to where it messed up their legacy, but also wasn't such a great album they felt the need to prove they are still on the top of their game. The band knew they were going to break up and made this album with the full knowledge this would be the last time they cut an album of new material together. Of course this album got all the typical reviews that contain quotes like, "Not their best, but they still have life" and "It's not Album X, but it's certainly really good." It seems all older bands get those medium-type reviews that don't bash the new album, while also acknowledging it's not as good as the old material.

If anything, this is a good album that only serves to remind the listener that there isn't a great track on the album. Therefore, it's hard for me to listen to the album despite the fact it's a consistently good album. You know how on certain albums there is a song or two (or three...or four...) you can't wait to hear? Well, this album lacks a song like that. So it's an album of really good music (Discoverer, All the Best, It Happened Today, and Mine Smell Like Honey) and the band still has an edge to it lacking from much of the late 90's and early 2000's material, it's still just an album of pretty good songs. It sounds crazy to write, since I put this as the 9th best album, but there are really no bad songs on this album. There's nothing shockingly embarrassing like "Out of Time" has, but there are also no great songs in the form of Electrolite. These songs if put on an album with any of the albums ranked above it would just be good songs on a good album.

So that's why I say it's hard to get through this album. It's good enough to listen to, not so bad you want to turn it off, but it mostly reminds you that R.E.M. still makes good music. Unfortunately, I don't see any great music on this album and that is the problem. An entire album of good, listenable music isn't a great album in this case.

The Ironically Titled Album

8. Accelerate

This was a "return to form" album for R.E.M. They had just made "Around the Sun," which was embarrassingly bad. They were getting older and probably didn't want to get into the "Dylan in the 80's" period of the band's career where they sold records off a good single or two and the brand name of the band. Plus, Michael Stipe is really liberal and George W. Bush was good for more liberal, political-minded songwriters to use for a muse. This was an exciting album at the time because it was the sign of the band being aggressive, loud and alive again. Seven years later some of that perspective is lost because "Around the Sun" is now a decade old and R.E.M. is broken up.

The album title is ironic because this album accelerates out of the game strongly with six really good songs in a row that have Mike Mills on background vocals and Michael Stipe spitting out lyrics from the outset of the album. It only slows down a little at the beginning of Hollow Man and then the pace picks up again. It's good, strong material, especially the first track Living Well is the Best Revenge, where towards the end of the song it seems Mike Mills' background vocals are simply trying to keep up with the pace of the song. Then Until the Day is Done begins and the rest of the album slows down and isn't as strong. It accelerated out of gate and then slows down into filler and songs that aren't as strong. This album is like a runner who is running a 10K who spends all of his energy on getting the lead in the first four miles and has no energy left to stay in the lead until the end.

There is a song called Sing for the Submarine which refers to a song from Around the Sun, Electron Blue. Why? I'm not sure. Then the album closes out with a song that, for me, is another silly song that I thought the band wouldn't record at this point in their career, I'm Gonna DJ. This song contains the lyrics:

"Death is pretty final,
I'm collecting vinyl,
'Cause if heaven does exist with a kicking playlist,
I don't want to miss it at the end of the world."

and then "I'm gonna DJ at the end of the world" is repeated over and over again. It's just not a great track. This is an album that proves R.E.M. can still write good music, but there's always some filler on their albums. If this were a seven track CD then there wouldn't be a weak track, but the way the album slows down after track 6 is very disconcerting.

The Highlights Do Overshadow the Lowlights

7. Document

When I was younger, I did not understand the politics behind this album. It's pretty damn political all the way through. They managed to include horns and a synthesizer on a song or two. I partly think this album came out of their attempts to vary their sound a bit more on "Fables of the Reconstruction" except they were a little more upbeat this time and the songwriting was much stronger. It's a more inspired album, mostly because the band was pissed off at Ronald Reagan (see? Republican presidents are good for songwriting) and the direction he was taking the country.

I tend to blame It's the End of the World World As We Know It (and I Feel Fine) for a lot of the later cutesy-songs the band tried to write. I'm probably off-base, but I feel like that song being a hit is responsible for side 1 of "Green" and the crap that is on parts of "Out of Time." This album has six classic R.E.M. songs on it, including the love song that is not at all a love song The One I Love. It's a song about using another person so I'm pretty sure the title is to be taken ironically and not literally.

The album starts off with three political songs that are only political if you pay attention to the lyrics, and since this is R.E.M., you probably are avoiding the lyrics a little bit since sometimes they are gibberish. Not so in this case. There is also one of my favorite R.E.M. songs, even though I have no idea what it's about, King of Birds, on the second side of the album. It's a very good album that takes a certain mood to listen to. If you want to hear R.E.M. at their kindest and most romantic then this is not the album to do so. It's more angry and jaded than anything else, though that's the brilliance of the band. It's angry and jaded but the music sounds happy and not angry at all. The lyrics are a different story of course.

On a different tangent, since I'm a person who has different moods then it makes sense R.E.M. has albums that can fit those moods. Sometimes I'm in the mood for jangle-pop and can put "Reckoning," "Murmur," "Lifes Rich Pageant." If I'm angry I put on "Accelerate" and "Document." If I want to annoy myself with what could have been I combine "Green" and "Out of Time" into one album without the crappy songs. If I want to hear more introspective and atmospheric songs then "Up," "Fables of the Reconstruction," "Automatic for the People," and "Reveal." If I want to fall asleep, I listen to "Around the Sun." Speaking of "Reveal..."

6. Reveal

This album deserves to be in the Hall of Very Good, but I recognize I'm biased because I love this album so much. There is some not-good material on here, so I have to place it at #6 and out of the "Hall of Very Good." On a day when I'm ready to hear the album, it's a top-3 album for me. It's moody, introspective and has a couple tributes to the Beach Boys on it. It's a really good album, though it's also not a very loud album. Sometimes it's hard to believe this album was made four years after "Monster."

"Reveal" has what I would consider to be the quintessential R.E.M. song on it in the form of Imitation of Life. I know, it sounds like high praise and it is. This song has all the attributes of a great R.E.M. song all packed into one.

1. Jangle-sounding guitar

2. Non-sensical lyrics

3. Mike Mills on background vocals where you can actually hear him

4. A chorus that sticks in your head and won't leave

5. A song title that just sounds interesting

6. Lyrics that may actually be nonsense or may actually be deep...who the fuck knows? Take it how you want.

My favorite song on this album is I've Been High. It's just a beautiful song (again, the meaning of it...I'm not sure, so take it how you want and I do take it how I want) about a person who wants to live their life "on high" but seems to be missing those things he wants and has seemingly tried too hard to get someone to believe in him.

do my eyes
do my eyes seem empty?
I've forgotten how this feels.

I've been high
I've climbed so high
but life sometimes
it washes over me...


was I wrong?
I don't know, don't answer.
I just needed to believe.

I've been high
I've climbed so high
but life sometimes
it washes over me...

close my eyes so I can see
make my make believe believe
in me

This song is seemingly the type of song that the band was trying to make on "Up," except this song is straight to the point in under three-and-a-half minutes. I'm a sucker for introspection and this album has a lot of that, as well as All the Way to Reno, which is another really great jangle-pop song. There's also The Lifting, She Just Wants to Be, Summer Turns to High, (the total Beach Boy tribute) Beachball, and I'll Take the Rain, which is basically a song where the narrator says if this is happiness he is experiencing with a person then he'll take the rain on his own (again, how I take it). It's not the most upbeat album, but on a given day I would put it up against nearly any other album in their catalog based on the great songs on the album. 

The Hall of Very Good

5. Lifes Rich Pageant

I consider this to be a sort of transition album for R.E.M. It's got one foot stuck in the college rock they did so well (Fall on Me, Hyena), while also previewing the harder rock that can be found on "Document" and "Green" (Begin the Begin, These Days), while also previewing some of the more pop-oriented jangle-rock and acoustic numbers they would record in the early 90's (Superman, and Swan Swan H). There are some really great individual songs on this album.

This is just a personal opinion, but it just doesn't add up to a great album for me. I can't really describe it too well, and it's still a very good album. It lacks cohesion for me. They are all really good songs, but it feels scattershot when listened to all together. Maybe it's that the album has a foot in several different sounds R.E.M. had over the years, because the album would have sounded great in 1986, but I hear the songs and think, "Well they did that song better on 'Monster' or I prefer the acoustic sounds of 'Out of Time' better." It's an album of really good songs, but they are all sort of really good songs, not exceptionally great songs throughout the album. Therefore I can't really rate it as a masterpiece.

4. Monster

I can't ever forget the first time I heard What's the Frequency Kenneth? on MTV. I was in love with R.E.M. at that point and was really excited to hear their new album which promised rock songs. The second I saw the video and heard the song I knew I was buying the album (which I probably would have done even if I didn't hear the song). Ready for a contradiction? This album is TOO cohesive for me. R.E.M. promised a rock album and they delivered a rock album with a ton of reverb, very little acoustic guitar, and loud sounds. It's great, but it's also very consciously a glam-rock album.

I have mentioned how one of R.E.M.'s strengths is they can play different types of music and do it well while making that sound their own. They did that here too. It lacks the masterpiece status for me because some of the songs go on too long (which was intentional by the band) and the songwriting just isn't strong enough to justify it being a masterpiece. It's got a great front side and one of my favorite R.E.M. songs in Strange Currencies, but the second half tends to go too falsetto and ramble at times. Tongue, You, and even I Took Your Name aren't my favorite songs by the band. It's a very conscious record in that they know they aren't sounding like R.E.M. and it only shows on a few tracks. Tracks where it is clear Michael Stipe is doing things vocally he hasn't normally done and the reverb gets to be too much for me. It's those moments when I notice it's R.E.M. trying not to sound like R.E.M. more than it is R.E.M. expanding their sound. Still, I think "Monster" is a great album overall.

The Masterpieces

3. Murmur

2. Reckoning

I hate to package these two albums together, but I consider them to be the same kind of album. Like "Van Halen I and II," Boston's self-titled album and "Don't Look Back," and a lot of Dave Matthews Band's early output "Reckoning" and "Murmur" are different in packaging and name only. Each of those bands added a different sound or instrument to a track or two or in order to have some diversity, but if you through their first two albums together it would be hard to figure out which songs came on which album. I rank "Reckoning" over "Murmur" only because the songs on "Reckoning" feel like a more grown-up and expanded version of what R.E.M. recorded on "Murmur." I love "Murmur" (obviously from the ranking of it as a masterpiece), but the songs are a little thinner-sounding compared to "Reckoning."

There isn't a bad song on either album really. "Murmur" is the typical debut album from a college band that doesn't have quite the big production and Stipe's vocals feel buried and completely unintelligible at times. It's not a bad thing at all, but "Reckoning" has slightly more diverse song-writing and sounds on it while still being an obvious sequel to "Murmur." It's an album where R.E.M. takes the sound of "Murmur" and expands on it with a more country sound on Don't Go Back to Rockville or going straight acoustic on Time After Time. It's a stronger album for me because the production is better, the songwriting is tighter and more focused, while the performances are also more streamlined and don't feel like it's simply really, really good college rock.

"Murmur" is the sound of a great college band changing the sound of music, while "Reckoning" is the sound of a band continuing to change the sound of music while also changing the band's sound in small ways just to see what they are capable of while keeping their own sound. This attempt to change went bad at times on "Fables of the Reconstruction" and they learned from that, but the attempt to grow while still keeping their signature sound is what makes "Reckoning" a better album in my mind.

The Best Masterpiece

1. Automatic for the People

This is a desert island disc for me. It can be a depressing album, so if I was stuck on a desert island then I would probably be pretty depressed and this would be an appropriate album, even if I didn't think it was R.E.M.'s best album, which I do. It probably has more filler than other R.E.M. albums, but the filler isn't bad and fits perfectly with the tone of the album. While I wouldn't choose New Orleans Instrumental No. 1, Monty Got a Raw Deal, Star Me Kitten, or Ignoreland as my favorite R.E.M. songs, they fit in perfectly with this album and how it was sequenced. The last two songs on that list (Star Me Kitten and Ignoreland) are on the back side of the album as a preview of the sound the band would pursue on "Monster" and break up the melancholy first side and the melancholy last couple of songs.

New Orleans Instrumental No. 1 fits in wonderfully after Everybody Hurts and before Sweetness Follows. It's an incredibly nice way to transition between the two songs. It's not a challenging or great instrumental, but it serves as a great outro to Everybody Hurts while also being a good intro to Sweetness Follows. Whereas Everybody Hurts is about holding on when times are tough, Sweetness Follows is about the same topic, but is just a little more jaded about it. Everybody Hurts says that life sucks and sometimes you just have to carry on (as anyone who has seen the video knows) and rarely has Michael Stipe been this pointed with his message in a song. Sweetness Follows is basically saying why continue carrying on with life when people you love will die and bad things happen? It's inspirational to just carry on while also being less uplifting than Everybody Hurts. My point is I think the instrumental breaks up the sort of sameness and downerness of these two songs.

So the sequencing is great to where the songs don't have to be the best to make sense in the context of the album. It's impeccably sequenced and the album ends with three of the best songs on the album. It's dark, hopeful, nostalgic, depressing, funny (The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight) and even political at times. It's a very cohesive album with death and reacting to death in some fashion dominating the album, but not being so dominating that it influences the listener's thoughts about the album.

Nightswimming is a favorite of a lot of people, but I think I prefer Find the River (which the opening notes sound like were nicked by Lisa Loeb on Stay) to Nightswimming. It's a song that even Michael Stipe has said is so personal to him that it probably doesn't carry the same meaning to everyone else, as well it being a song the band has struggled playing live. I have no idea what the song is about. It could be about death, it could be about taking chances in life because at some point it all ends (which is death) or it's just about taking life as it comes and not trying to speed up things. It's one of my favorites on the album, especially when he sings about "Nothing is going my way." It seems so random since a lot of the song is more flowery and poetic imagery, while this seems like a simple statement of frustration. It's tough to analyze it too much I guess.

I never get tired of "Automatic for the People." I think it's a perfect album. It's an acoustic album that doesn't feel soft and a depressing album that doesn't always feel depressing. That ends the overly-long list of my ranking the best and worst R.E.M. albums. For someone who doesn't love lists I sure do write a lot of them.

So Future Islands Are Very...Interesting in Concert

I was listening to Spotify over the past few weeks as I want to do every single day of the week when I am work. There's been a really good song I've heard and even took the time to download. It was called Seasons (Waiting On You) by a band called Future Islands. It's very synth-heavy and definitely has a sort of melancholy mood about it. Anyway, I have enjoyed the song and now own it. Here it is. Ignore the weird country video that doesn't seem to match the song too well. It's not everyone's cup of tea, but it grew on me after a while and I really like the song. Long story short, I listened to the rest of their "Singles" album (the album the song is off of) and wasn't quite as impressed. It's not bad and it's the type of music that could grow on me if given the chance. I did stumble on their bio on Spotify and it mentioned they had a performance on "The Late Show with David Letterman" that left him impressed and speechless. I like bands that are good live, so I checked out the video. The live version is very interesting. Now before you watch the video, please listen to the studio version above and then listen to the live version with the vocals. You'll know what I'm talking about when you hear the live version compared to the studio version.

So first off, the dancing. It's not bad. It's not entirely distracting. It's just dancing. It's one of those dances that someone would do in private, but just politely say, "I don't dance" if there ever was a time it had to be used in public. It goes from "Dances your dad does" to "Wow, he has some rhythm" to "These are some sincere vocals" to "That's an easy way to tear an ACL" to "He can't be entirely serious." Again, it's not bad, but I ran the gamut of emotions watching it.

At 1:48 he pounds on his chest so hard you can hear it through the mic. Holy crap, he's serious.

At 2:43 he gives the "Eddie Vedder intense stare into space" look that makes me worry somebody in the front row might get either kissed or murdered. Possibly both. But not neither. Then more chest-beating.

So the vocals, they aren't bad and you can tell he is really singing and does not care if you know he misses notes. In an era where no musician wants to miss a note live, it's refreshing.

But then...3:08 the Cookie Monster voice comes out. Holy shit. That's Cookie Monster or some weird gothic-metal voice. I can't explain it. I thought the studio vocals were fine, but apparently the producer worked hard to talk the lead singer (his name is Sam) out of using that voice, but when the producer is away the voice comes out. I don't know if I don't like it more than I am wondering why he changed the vocals around.

So of course being the inquisitive person I wanted to know if this was a "Late Show" thing or something Sam, the lead singer, does during most live performances. It turns out he does this voice during live performances. As seen in this entire concert video below.

There's more chest-pounding and Cookie Monster vocals. I will check out more of this band's music, simply because I'm really interested now. Maybe that's the point. Either way, wow, I didn't expect much of this live performance to work this way. Still, Seasons (Waiting for You) is a good song.

My Worst Job Interview Ever

We've all had some bad job interviews. I have gone through at least two periods in my life where I was without a job (once out of college and once when I quit my worst job ever) and I was more prepared and applied for jobs that were more appropriate the second time, as opposed to when I was looking for a job fresh out of college. I've shown up to interviews very prepared, not so prepared, hungover and feeling great. I have had two shitty, shitty interviews that don't qualify as my worst interviews ever. Both involved selling products door-to-door, when the job posting indicated something completely different from what the interview involved. Both interviews involved me shadowing a person for an entire day (yes, the entire day and I walked around in dress shoes all day too) and in one interview I sold door-to-door in Fayetteville, North Carolina and the other interview I went from Charlotte back to my hometown 10 miles from Charlotte and sold door-to-door in a neighborhood where I knew people. By the way, at the end of both of these interviews I told my would-be supervisor in that position I would rather be unemployed than work for them. Of course, both would-be supervisors reminded me what a mistake I was making. Of course, I didn't make a mistake and can't even remember the names of each company. I'm sure they are still out there trying to get energetic college graduates to work for them in some bizarre pyramid scheme.

But my worst job interview also happened to be one of my shortest job interviews. I don't remember the company, but I do remember it was an insurance firm and I was applying for a more junior managerial role at that firm. I had graduated from grad school in May and it was September and I wanted a job. I was looking at the all the popular sites on a daily basis and even had the Fortune 500 list bookmarked and went through 100 of those companies everyday to where I was looking at those companies for jobs once a week. So I found this job I thought I might apply for through one of these sites. It dealt with numbers, didn't seem like it involved too much sales, and it was a semi-managerial position. So I applied for it, and as I was want to do, promptly forget the specifics of the job as I went searching for the hundreds of other jobs available in the hopes someone would hire me so I could start living my life.

A week later or so, I got a phone call from this insurance firm and they wanted me to come in for an interview. I looked back at the spreadsheet I kept of jobs I applied for with the job description included. I was surprised because I did feel like it was a bit of a reach for me to even get a call in response to my application since I didn't have prior work experience in the field, but it was a pleasant surprise. So I studied up on the company, learned more about the position, got my questions ready and didn't stay out too late with my friends the night before. I was prepared. I woke up the next morning and drove to downtown Raleigh to the interview.

The office was full of dark wood panels. That's all I remember. The wood paneling was really dark and the reception area wasn't huge. I checked in with receptionist and within probably 15 seconds a gentleman came out and introduced himself and brought me back to his office. He was a middle-aged white man (I know, a shock, right?) dressed in a shirt and tie. Pretty standard look and he had the corner office with a nice view of the street through some trees. He was a cliche. He sat me down and that's where the fun began. I remember most of the conversation, which isn't hard since I was there for maybe five minutes. And I promise, I am not making his tone and antagonism up.

(Guy...in a very loud tone that appears to try and sound threatening...it's a standard dominant-male-trying-to-intimidate-to-see-what-you-are-made-of act) "Tell me about yourself."

(Me, knowing this is always the first question asked is ready to nail this question) "Well...(I start the whole spiel about my background and then he interrupts)"

(Guy) "No, specifically why did you apply for this job?"

(Me) "I thought the job description sounded interesting and I have a background in with finance and money, so I was hoping it would be a field I could be interested in developing a career in."

(Guy) "Well, what do you know about the field?"

(Me) "I know the insurance field isn't easy and that a lot of success depends on keeping good relations with your customers and always acquiring new customers to keep the business growing."

(Guy...I realize now his tone isn't supposed to be threatening, but he's essentially fucking with me...he's antagonizing me and I had no idea why) "My job. What do you know about my job?"

(Me...looking at my notes) "I don't think I'm applying for your job, am I?"

(Guy...smiles condescendingly) "No, you are not. But tell me what you think I do on a daily basis, from the time I walk in the office until the time I leave."

(Me...in a tone that is meek, because I need a job...these cigarettes and alcohol aren't going to pay for themselves) "I have no idea what you do on a daily basis from when you walk in until you leave during the day. I'm eager to know, which is why I'm here to see if we are a good fit."

(Guy...asking the questions in a tone that I now see isn't confrontational or antagonizing necessarily, but he brought me here to tell me how I am underqualified for the job) "We aren't a good fit. But do tell me what you think I do on a daily basis."

(Me...I'm defeated at this point, but I keep going...) "Okay, when you get in at 8am you...(I go through a list of what I think he does, which based on the fact I had never worked in the office was obviously completely incorrect)

(Guy shake his head at me) "All wrong. I come in early every morning before 8am (I should have stood up and given him applause I guess), look at my agenda for the day, plan my client meetings, plan at least two hours (and he puts up two fingers as if I would fail to understand what "two" means) for additional phone calls, have meetings with staff members and get updates on how the business is going. I leave after 5pm everyday."

(Me...not giving up) "And those are all things I would like to do in the future---"

(Guy) "Not here you won't. Why would you apply for a job you aren't even qualified for? Why would you waste my time and have me interview you when you have no idea what I do and what the position calls for?"

(Me...done giving up giving up) "In fairness, I have no prior work experience outside of work done during summers in high school and college, so I don't know what any job consists of because I haven't been given a chance to learn. I can't get job experience until I'm given a chance to do a job. Also, I don't think I applied for your job."

(Guy) "Yes, but this is a job that requires someone who has experience. It said on the posting it takes 3-5 years experience (which is something I knew at the time is just put on there to get more qualified candidates to apply and I know that now too when I interview people and put "3-5 years experience" on the job posting) and you march in here with zero years experience. You need to reconsider your job search and start applying for jobs that you are qualified for and not waste anyone else's time."

(Me) "You didn't have to interview me and you chose to."

(Guy) "Start applying for entry level jobs you are qualified for and don't waste anyone else's time. Do you have any more questions for me?"

(Me...I did have questions for him, probably a thousand, but wanted to leave ASAP) "No."

(Guy shakes my hand and lets me out of his office) "Good to meet you and good luck."

I drove home laughing because this guy called me into his office simply to antagonize me for applying for a job. He wasted his time to berate me for wasting his time. It seemed sort of unnecessary. I would have gotten the message by never receiving a phone call for an interview.

When I got back, my roommate who did have the experience required, heard the story as we sat by the pool and said he was going to apply for the job and then go in and mess with the guy (he had a job pretty much guaranteed to him by his old company once he graduated from graduate school so he had nothing to lose). He never did that of course, which is probably a good thing.

To this day, this is my worst interview. Probably even worse than the interview where a second interview was supposed to be scheduled for 4pm and they called me at 8am to see if I could make a 9:15am interview instead. I wanted the job, so I took the interview. I had been out the night before very late and I was a zombie at the interview and did not get the job. It was probably my terrible ability to recall facts and the fact I wanted to sleep and not talk that set me back. Regardless, I still don't know why this insurance guy called me into his office just to berate me for applying for the job. Who does that?

$25 to Assemble a Rock Band

There is a recent Twitter trend to give someone $25 to choose a sports team and Matt Norlander of CBS Sports and Sports on Earth jumped on the trend, except he assembled a band for $25. Here are the options and the prices for each member in this Tweet.

https://twitter.com/MattNorlander/status/473815803465580545

I immediately have a couple of issues with this. John Mayer for $7 on rhythm guitar? Make him a lead guitarist and lower the price. Also, Mick Jagger is not a strong vocalist so I think $9 is a bit overpriced for him. $1 for John Paul Jones? That's a gimme for how good of an arranger, bassist and keyboardist he is. Yeah, I'm already spoiling that he's in my band. I'm not a big Rush fan so $10 for Neal Peart is overpriced for my tastes. Also, no women on the list. Very sexist.

Here's my band for $25, starting off with the lead guitarist. Please remember I am starting a band, which means singing and the ability to play other instruments as well as write great songs is important to me.

Lead Guitar: Prince, $8

The guy can play guitar exceptionally well and he writes great music. Personally I would choose Lindsay Buckingham if he were available (and he would have been cheap, which allows me to go expensive elsewhere), but he was not. Regardless, Prince can play all sorts of music. He can play soul, rock, pop, you name it and he can play it, plus he's got the vocals and songwriting chops. Secretly, I just want to see him singing background vocals just to see how that would work. He's the best for the prices given on this list.

Hendrix, Vaughn, and the others are great (except for Eric Clapton who I think is just a bit overrated in some aspects in his guitar playing...he's technically great, but lacks some soul to me), but I don't find another lead guitar player who combines the songwriting, vocals, and ability to play guitar that Prince has.

Rhythm Guitar: Stone Gossard, $1

My biggest issue with this category is that all the guitarists but Keith Richards, Gossard, and James Hetfield are the lead guitarist in their band. Even Gossard and Richards play lead guitar at times. So I like to choose a pure rhythm guitarist, which means only Hetfield really fits. James Hetfield probably doesn't have the range and Keith Richards is too expensive for me to choose. It's not that Gossard is sloppy seconds or thirds, but he's an excellent rock guitarist who blends in well with the rest of the band and contributes background vocals. I like band members who can contribute in various ways. Gossard also wrote the music for "Alive," so that's enough to put him on this list.

Lead Singer: Freddie Mercury, $10

I saved my money, pinched my pennies and got the vocalist I wanted. I'm not a huge fan of Queen's music. It's very operatic and a little too overdone and dramatic for my tastes, but that is also what makes Freddie Mercury the perfect lead singer for my band. Can you imagine him on stage with Prince? Mercury had great stage presence and knew how to put on a show as the lead singer. His range was ridiculous, and yes, he can play piano if my bassist is too busy playing the bass to play piano. So while I'm not a huge fan of Queen, I understand that Freddie Mercury was a great vocalist and worth the money here.

Jagger is a great performer, but he's not a great vocalist.

Plant, Daltry, Rose, and Osborne don't really fit the sound I want with the band.

David Bowie would be a good choice but I've never really thought of him as strong on vocals for some reason. The same goes for Jim Morrison who is a great writer, but also isn't the best of singers. Plus, there is always the chance he shows his penis on stage which isn't something I want for my band.

Bono is a douche and I feel like he and my drummer won't get along, plus I'm not in love with his songwriting ability.

Steven Tyler annoys me by going to his high register and screaming instead of just singing the words to a song. "Dream On" was the worst thing to happen to Tyler's vocals. It made him believe he needs to screech on every single track whenever he gets the slightest chance. I need a vocalist who can cool it down when I want him to.

Bassist: John Paul Jones, $1

There's no way John Paul Jones should be $1. He is a fantastic arranger, great at playing different instruments (keyboards especially), can do vocals and plays a great bass. He's honestly everything I would want in a bassist and he only cost me $1. There's really no need to discuss the other bassists too much, but of course I will.

Flea...he's good, but not as good as Jones. I don't want the other bassists on the list in my band. Paul McCartney is a guy who can play multiple instruments, but I think he is a bit overrated in the songwriting department. Plus, I feel like he would want to play "Hey Jude" at every show and want to sing lead on a few songs. I didn't hire Freddie Mercury for $10 to have him take the background on 5-6 songs in concert. I would worry about this with Prince, but I think he would also enjoy just playing lead guitar. John Paul Jones is very clearly my guy.

Drummer: Dave Grohl, $4

Ironically (not ironically) I did not like the Them Crooked Vultures album even though I love Grohl, Jones, and Josh Homme, as well as their respective bands, separately. Maybe if there are five guys in the band instead of three, and Homme isn't the lead singer, I will like a collaboration from them better. Dave Grohl is also very versatile and has a background in different types of instrumentation. You can see I value versatility and Grohl can play drums, guitar, and pretty much anything...plus he sings and doesn't mind singing background vocals from the drum kit. Plus, he is a great songwriter and works hard at making new music. He can drag these other guys (you know, the ones who aren't dead) into the studio to make new music.

Grohl was my #1 choice, and I like the other candidates, but I didn't think they would fit in as well with my band as Grohl would. I can see him playing drums behind Freddie Mercury and jamming with Prince onstage. For some reason, this was an easy choice for me.

So this is my band that cost $24:

Freddie Mercury (lead vocals, keyboards)
Stone Gossard (background vocals, rhythm guitar)
Prince (background vocals, lead guitar)
John Paul Jones (keyboards, strings, bass guitar)
Dave Grohl (drums, keyboards, guitar, background vocals)

I sort of wish I could see this band in concert now.