brainsplotch

I am really trying not to lose hope in this country, but it gets increasingly difficult by the day. Another school shooting. As of this writing, 19 children dead and two teachers. If we as an American society can't even be bothered to keep our children safe, then what good are we?  I am thoroughly disgusted that we as an American society have decided that the free and easy access to every gun imaginable is more important than protecting the well-being of our children. I am really trying to not become overcome with anger and frustration, but it is difficult.

  Mark’s book review time: Burning Down the Haus : Punk Rock, Revolution, and the Fall of the Berlin Wall by Tim Mohr (2018) Five months ago, I wouldn’t have guessed I’d read a book about punk rock in East Germany. Ten days in December absorbing Radebeul, Dresden, and Leipzig led me, upon our return home, to the Radio GDR podcast. The Radio GDR podcast led me to this book, and it opened a door to a hidden history of which I was completely unaware. In the late ‘70s, punk rock magazines smuggled into East Berlin from West Berlin sparked what eventually became a movement. East German youth (not all of them, but enough of them) were stifled by the oppressive Erich Honecker dictatorship. As author Tim Mohr writes, unlike the British punk slogan of “No Future” under the Thatcher regime, the problem facing East German youth was “too much future.” Everything, including educational opportunities and employment, was already mapped out for them. Burning Down the Haus: Punk Rock, Revolu...

The last few months have been fruitful for excellent "aging Gen Xer" music, with a plethora of albums that I have been enjoying recently. You may or may not have heard of the band Wet Leg. They have created a sensation in the last few months with their song "Cha is  Longue." Wet Leg is comprised of two 20-something women from the Isle of Wight (Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers--could names get more "British Isles-sounding" than that?). I first heard "Chaise Longue" at the Suburbs Fest back in October 2021, when one of the attendees played the song for a few of us on his phone. At the time, the spare post-punkish tune with the double entendre lyrics seemed like simply a fun novelty tune. I thought it was a catchy song, but didn't give it much thought beyond that. But Wet Leg continued to release new songs, and they were all pretty good--and now, in April 2022, a full-length album. It's full of short, catchy, pop-punky songs about boredom...

This Russia/Ukraine war is so incredibly depressing AND infuriating. I dread watching the first 10 minutes of the national news every evening because it's nothing but bombed out buildings, war crime atrocities, frightened refugees, and unnecessary death. I get angry about a situation over which I have absolutely no control. I suppose the choice is between not watching the evening news and not remaining informed of world events. I am still slowly but surely plugging my way through the book Burning Down the Haus (by Tim Mohr) about the early '80s punk movement in East Germany. Those young people were fearless, risking long intense interrogation from the Stasi and imprisonment in order to speak their minds and their truth. It is quite an incredible story. Once I finish it, I will try (key word: try) to write more about it in here. On the subject of German music, I have finally decided to dip my toe in "Krautrock." I have been listening to CAN and their albums Tago Mago ...

[Warning: foul language sprinkled throughout]. I naively thought we were over this Cold War shit back in about 1990 when the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union was finally exposed as essentially a paper tiger. But now, added onto a global pandemic, climate change, and general political unrest in our own country and the world, why not throw some good old-fashioned mutually assured destruction into the mix.  I feel terrible for the people in Ukraine, but am also sad for the children and young people of the world who have to live on this absolute shit show of a planet. I am angry that one unbalanced tyrant in Russia is able to wield so much power over the world. The threat of nuclear annihilation and not having any clue what Putin will pull if confronted by NATO make this a tenuous and stressful situation. And on a more personal level, my older son is trying to carve out a life in Germany and now this crazy Russian motherfucker decides to destabilize Europe. (I readily acknowl...

 Netflix's F Is For Family is a television show that never received the appreciation it deserved. It just completed its fifth and final season. For anyone not familiar with it, F Is For Family is (or I should say, was , at this point) an animated show that takes place in the 1970s and focuses on the Murphy family of the fictional Midwestern city of Rustvale. The patriarch of the family, Frank Murphy, is a guy who--as a young man--wanted to be an airline pilot until life got in the way. He returned from the Korean War, got his girlfriend pregnant, married her, and instead of becoming a pilot, settled into the slightly less glamorous job of baggage department manager for Mohican Airways at the Walter L. Rustbelt Memorial Airport. Pretty much living paycheck to paycheck, the often hot-headed Frank and his wiser and generally more level-headed wife Sue struggle to raise their three kids: airhead stoner wannabe rocker Kevin, intelligent daughter Maureen, and awkward younger son Bill. ...

It's hard to believe that it was exactly one month ago that our plane touched down in Germany. Time flies ridiculously fast. The ripple effect of that trip continues. I am processing more of it now than I was when I was there. I also can't help but feel a tad jealous of my son, who lives there full time. Then again, he speaks fluent German and me--not so much. Also, I do think that, though the United (United?) States drives me crazier and crazier by the day, there are definitely aspects of life here that I'd miss if I lived in another country.  A few years ago, Nora's parents gave us a small book about Dresden and a CD compilation called Die 100 Großten Ost-Hits, Volume 1  that contains a hundred big East German pop songs. I have to admit that prior to December 30, 2021, these items remained relatively untouched at our house. I did play a little bit of Ost Hits at one time with mild curiosity (and found much of the music surprisingly better than I expected), and might h...