More records that I played a lot during the past 12 months...
18. Grandaddy - Blu Wav
Another of those bands who are guaranteed to take my money just by virtue of putting out a new record, Jason Lytle's Grandaddy returned with what is rumoured to be their last album. We'll see. If that does turn out to be the case, then this will be a fitting finale, since despite the pre-release rumours of a change of direction (the title hints at a combination of bluegrass and new wave), this is the most Grandaddy-sounding record in 20 odd years, certainly the one that's most reminiscent of their 2000 classic The Sophtware Slump.
Wave to me on your way to the watercooler Just don't wait for me 'cause we won't work Please wave to me on your way to the watercooler Cross the break room just the way you always do
And you cry in the bathroom stall 'Cause I won't call although I know you hurt And you cry in the bathroom stall 'Cause I don't call, it's not what you deserve
17. Taylor Swift - The Tortured Poets Society
In a which a middle-aged man feels the need to incessantly apologise for appreciating the work of the world's biggest pop star (2024) and explain that he's not just including her album in this list to sound hip or as though his finger is still on the pulse of the zeitgeist.
Apparently, being a "Swiftie Dad" demonstrates "the power of positive masculinity". So there. And Ms. Swift is a fan of a top notch Scottish band many of you will have in your record collections...
Drowning in the Blue Nile He sent me 'Downtown Lights' I hadn't heard it in a while
16. Tim Heidecker - Slipping Away
The work of stand-up comic and serious songwriter Tim Heidecker has become something of an obsession for me this past year, with two of his previous albums - High School and Fear of Death - being constant companions. His newest record only came out a few weeks back, and as I usually find his discs to be slow-burners, it hasn't imprinted itself on my subconscious in quite the same way... yet. But the lead single, Dad of the Year, speaks to me more than just about anything else I've heard in 2024...
When I was a child, I wanted to be special Thought that I could be a big, big star Then I got older and saw how the world works Someone like me can only go so far
I'm not gonna be on the cover of a magazine I got bills to pay I gotta keep working every day I'm not gonna go down in history Only my family will remember me
Introspective singer-songwriter and part-time stand up comic, Tim Heidecker, has a new record out soon. I'm hoping it'll be as good as his last two... and judging from the track below, that's a no-brainer...
His 2020 album Fear of Death has been on heavy rotation in my car for the past few months, and shows little sign of outstaying its welcome. Here are a couple of my favourite lyrics...
I live in fear of everyone
I hope you understand
Don't count on us becoming friends
I think I'm done growing
I think I'm done growing
I think I'm done growing
I don't want to leave the house again
No more partying
I learned all I am gonna learn
I think I'm done growing
I think I'm done growing
I think I'm done growing
The fear of death is keeping me alive
I don't want money
Don't want fame
Don't want to be a household name
Oh, who am I kidding?
Sure I do
But I don't want any of it
Without you
I love my stuff
And I need my things
And all the comforts that they bring
But I feel
Oh, I don't want any of it
Without you
I couldn't live without you
Standing beside me
Couldn't take another breath
It might sound like comical hyperbole
But we're looking at imminent death
This is the music that speaks to me these days. Make of that what you will.
Future is uncertain The past is fading away Future is uncertain The past is fading away I remember laughin', I can't remember what I was laughin' about And I remember cryin', I can't forget what I was cryin' about That won't fade away
Are you one of those people who checks their route on Google Earth whenever you have to go somewhere new, following the little Google car down every street, looking for car parks and petrol stations and supermarkets where you might be able to stop for a wee?
If you have to buy something new for your home, do you research it for hours, reading Which? Best Buy reviews and google feedback? Are you obsessed with making certain you’ve found the best possible price out of all the retailers that stock it… and is it definitely in stock? What if you have to return it? Does that retailer have a good track record for customer service?
If you’re going on holiday, do you try to plan a timetable for the whole week? Where you’ll go each day, where you’ll eat, the routes you might take between destinations… and all the stuff I mentioned in the first paragraph?
In her book Don't Feed the Monkey Mind, Jennifer Shannon identifies three basic assumptions shared by all anxious people: Intolerance of Uncertainy, Perfectionism and Over-Responsibility. They relate to specific personality types – some people will have far more of one than the others, but all anxiety sufferers will sample the delights of each assumptive buffet at one time or another.
When people who are intolerant of uncertainty are exposed to a little bit of uncertainty, they also have a strong reaction: they worry, and do everything they can think of to get away from, avoid or eliminate the uncertainty.
If you’re invited to a party, does the very idea fill you with dread? Who will be there? What should you take? (What will other people be taking?) What time should you arrive? Is it better to be fashionably late… or might that be considered rude? Is it better off just to make your excuses and not go in the first place?
I'll have a shower Within the hour I'll smash another cup Please don't start saying that Or I'll start believing you If I start believing you I'll know that this Party Fears Two And then phone my brother up
Life is uncertainty. We don’t know what will happen tomorrow, next week or even in the next five minutes. But our monkey brain (remember the amygdala?) hates uncertainty. How can it keep us safe if it doesn’t know what the threats are or where they might be coming from? And it’s not just threats to our life and wellbeing it’s trying to protect us from, but the threat of exclusion from the tribe… hence the party fears mentioned above.
Difficulty tolerating doubt can lead to compulsive checking behaviours like making sure doors are locked and appliances are turned off. You’ll tend to overplan things; even weekends and vacations have a to-do list. And when the list doesn’t get finished or things don’t go as you planned them, you become upset and have difficulty enjoying the moment.
We’ve got a freezer in our garage. A few years back it was accidentally switched off and we had to throw all the food away. Now, whenever I’m closing the garage door, I complete a ritual in my head where I say, “lid down, green light on” to make sure the freezer is OK. Often, even though I’ve done this, I still have to lift the garage door back up and double check. I have to be certain. “Lid down, green light on” has now become a mantra and I've found myself saying it at other times two. This morning it was when I arrived at work and was checking I had everything I needed before I left the car park.
If you can’t stand uncertainty and do everything you can to get rid of it, you might have noticed a problem: it is IMPOSSIBLE to get rid of all uncertainty in your life.
What this means for you is that all the work that you are doing to get rid of uncertainty is useless, it just doesn’t work. If it did, you would probably not be struggling with anxiety and worry.
So what is the solution?
If you can’t get rid of uncertainty in your life, the only way to manage your intolerance of uncertainty is by learning to be more TOLERANT of uncertainty.
One thing I’m learning about dealing with mental health issues – particularly those relating to the pesky monkey in our amygdala – is that often the best way to fight them is to act as though you don’t have them. Intolerant of uncertainty? Act as though you’re not. Go to the party and deal with whatever might happen, including any smashed cups. Who cares if you got the cheapest price on that essential purchase? You just got an evening back that you would otherwise have wasted on price comparison sites. Remember life before Google Earth? When we found our own way to places, with the occasional help of a map?
Easier said than done in a lot of cases, and there are times (like my garage freezer) when it pays to check. But the more you force yourself to deal with uncertain situations, the more your storytelling brain will write stronger neural pathways that allow you to cope with the unexpected.
That’s the theory, anyway…
And it's the damage that we do and never know
It's the words that we don't say that scare me so
There's so many people to see
So many people you can check up on and add to your collection
But they keep you hanging on, until you're well hung
Following on from Monday's post, I started reading one of the books Ben recommended. Much of this post comes from Don't Feed The Monkey Mind by Jennifer Shannon, although it's my own interpretation of her writing, coupled with some other bits I've dug up on the interweb.
Oh, I've been working
Working myself up to the fact
That my best days are behind me
And the road up ahead will be filled with looking back
And the road up ahead will be filled with looking back
Will I look back with regret, with moments to forget
Or will I love what I see?
And the memories will surround me like a warm bubble bath
That's why I'm doing this series. Because I want more warm bubble bath memories to look back on in my dotage, rather than regret.
Why do we get stressed in the first place?
According to the scientists, it’s all down to two little almonds in our brain. Yes, our brains contain nuts. And these nuts are in control of our emotions! As soon as I read this, I felt a lot better about my stress, anxiety, lack of self-esteem and overall miserableness. It’s all just nuts!
The nuts in question are amygdala – although because there’s two of them, there’s some debate about whether the plural should be amygdalas or amygdalae. As it’s a word I find difficult to pronounce anyway, I’m going to stick with the singular. Amygdala. Anyway, the word comes from the Greek amygdalē, which translates as either ‘tonsil’ or ‘almond’. I bet that caused some confusion in Greek hospitals whenever anyone turned up with tonsillitis… or was it just an almond stuck in their throat? Obviously, I’m going with the almond translation because… nuts!
Although they’re a tiny part of our overall brain, the amygdala have a huge job to do. Scientists believe they’re in charge of learning and memory, behaviour, decision making and – perhaps most importantly of all – emotions. Actually, I’m not really sure what else is left for the rest of the brain to do. I reckon it just stares out of the window and tries to work out what your favourite Supertramp song is, or who was Number One on your 16th birthday.
(In case you're wondering, I had no memory of that at all, so I had to look it up. And I bought that record too. I very quickly came to despite Stock, Aitken & Waterman, but I was a big fan of Neighbours - and Kylie in particular - at this time and I was 16, so what do you want from me?)
The amygdala’s main job would appear to be assessing danger. Everything we see, smell, hear, taste, touch, feel or think passes through the amygdala, and the amygdala screens it all for threats. It’s like a particularly thorough airport security check… or, the way I prefer to think about it, it’s our spider-sense.
Whenever the amygdala senses any kind of threat – from a bus about to run us over in the street to somebody gossiping about us behind our back in the office – it sets off our spider-sense, various hormonal and neurological warning signals that in turn cause us to feel the symptoms of stress. These will vary depending on the individual and the situation, but they include all the old favourites – physical stuff such as increased heart rate, changes to breathing, hot or cold sweat, and mental reactions such as fear, anger and shame. Stress hormones basically prepare us to fight the threat or flee from the danger: fight or flight. But they often override our normal, logical human brain, and let our monkey brain take over. And what do monkeys love? Nuts! That’s why we sometimes do crazy things when we’re stressed, like shouting at people we love, eating a whole chocolate cake in one go, or punching the wall with exasperation.
(Kommode are from Norway. You'll be pleased to learn that a Kommode in Norwegian is a chest of drawers, not a water closet.)
When the amygdala goes into overdrive, it can cause all kinds of mental health problems, including chronic anxiety, depression, self-harm, eating disorders, bi-polar disorder, and PTSD. It can affect our appetite, our sleep, our self-image, our enjoyment of life… pretty much everything. All that from two little almonds in our brain. Nuts.
So... what do we do about it? Well, I certainly don’t claim to have a magic wand. (Not yet, anyway.) But the first step in dealing with any problem is understanding the problem. Understanding why we feel the way we do in any given situation, and what’s going on in our brains and our bodies that creates those feelings. Recognising that negative thoughts are just thoughts, and that negative feelings are just chemical and neurological responses.
I'd like to help you, doctor
Yes I really, really would
But the din in my head
It's too much and it's no good
I'm standing in a windy tunnel
Shouting through the roar
And I'd like to give the information
You're asking for
But blood makes noise
It's a ringing in my ear
Blood makes noise
And I can't really hear you in the thickening of fear
And if that doesn’t calm you down, try thinking about the monkey throwing nuts around as soon as it senses danger. Saying, “shut up, monkey!” whenever your head fills up with negative thoughts might seem like an overly simplistic way of dealing with the situation, but it’s a clear reminder of what’s going on in your brain, and that’s a good start.
As Robert Palmer told me in a dream last night, Don’t Explain. That was a Billie Holliday song
originally, but for me it’ll always be by Batley Bob, because I heard him do it
first, at an impressionable age.
I stopped at Morrisons last week for a few bits. Went to the self-service checkout so I didn't have to make conversation. After I'd paid, the following message flashed up on the machine...
Lovely to see you. Bye for now.
This offends me in so many way, I can't even begin to count. If a cashier said this to me, I'd think it was weird... but a machine?
The chances of me getting around to featuring the stylistically extravagant action movie director John Woo on Celebrity Jukebox any time soon seem slim. Hopefully for him anyway, since the jukebox has become a hectic requiem in recent weeks. Anyway, here's a song with his name from new London band My Fat Pony.
Love the home-made video.
Louise bought me some socks for Father's Day. My initial reaction was, "I'm not sure I can wear these for work..."
"Oh," she said. "Sorry. I didn't know they said that on them."
I told Ben. He replied with two words.
She knew.
Speaking of Ben, he recommended I listen to Tim Heidecker, an artist he saw on tour earlier in the year. Heidecker's an American actor and comedian, so the first half of his set is a world weary stand-up routine. Then he comes back on and does a set of upbeat, nostalgia-focussed Americana Ben figured would be right up my street. He's not wrong.
Back when I taught in college at The Bad Place, I had a student who regularly called me Brendon. When I asked why, he said it was because I looked like Brendon Urie, lead singer of Panic! At The Disco. I don’t. Brendon’s much younger and prettier than me. The most I can say is that my hair goes back in a similar way.
Despite being named after Smiths lyrics, P!ATD are a band who have said little to me about my life since they emerged from the provincial town of Las Vegas in 2004… however, I’ve been strangely taken by their latest album, Viva Las Vengeance. It’s a tribute to the bands Urie loved when he was a kid, and on first listen the obvious influences (to me, anyway) were Queen, Costello, Thin Lizzy and Steinman. Reviewers have cited The Beatles and The Police, among others… but after repeated listens, the homages coalesce and it all starts to sound like a Panic! record. But a really good one, and a really catchy one. Shame it’s their last, as Urie has announced his retirement… at least until the inevitable comeback tour beckons.
Here's the title track, which immediately made me think of vintage Costello...
