“Century” by Live

I first listened to the song “Century” by Live, an alternative American rock band who reached their peak success in the mid-1990’s, on a Wednesday at noon during my break in between classes. The first thing I noticed about this song is the passion in Ed Kowalczyk’s (lead vocals and guitar) voice – he even felt angry. For some reason I actually pictured Kowalczyk in a cowboy hat as I was listening to this song for the first time.

A few of the lyrics were hard for me to make out over the electric guitar and drums once the song picks up pace, but a lyric that stuck out for me listening to this song for the first time around was, “The puke stinks like beer,” which is really disgusting, but I totally know what Kowalczyk means by that. I’ve had my fair share of Sunday mornings where I was so hung-over from the night before that I had to lean over the porcelain throne to puke my guts out – the taste of beer and liquor would come back up and make me puke even more. Disgusting, I know.

The more I listened to this song the better it got for me, but it was primarily because of the lyrics rather than the sound of the song. The sound of the song came off as average. I like intricateness, especially with guitars.

The more I got to explore the song, the imagery of the lyrics really started to sink in. An overall theme I got out of this song is destruction and how we, as human beings, are destroying the century that we live in because we’re not doing anything to prevent destruction – we feed off of destruction like a bunch of masochists.

“Everybody’s anxious for the coming of the crisis.” This is a lyric I really liked because it’s so true. Everybody wants to just sit back and wait for disaster to strike without ever really doing anything to change that outcome. People rather give up and give in. This lyric also reminded me of when I’m driving along a highway and there is an accident and every car that passes by the accident slows down to watch and stare. Another instance that came to mind when I heard this lyric is when you’re on the beach and you see a lifeguard dart into the water. You see everyone on the beach lift their heads up because they just want to see a disaster – a crisis.

I also got the feeling that hallucinogenic drugs influenced the lyrics of this song since there are references to Aldous Huxley and how his “followers are spinning with their mescaline.” After thinking about the influence that hallucinogens could have had on these lyrics, the lyric, “This could be a city – this could be a graveyard,” made a little more sense to me. A person who is tripping can look at an entire city and see a wasteland, a graveyard, but then again you don’t have to be tripping to get that interpretation although it is a very dramatic one.

A frequent lyric throughout the entire song is, “You stole my idea,” which continues to puzzle me. Although I said that the lyrics of this song made it for me, they still don’t connect and match-up. They don’t seem to be consciously thought out.

One can interpret this song in dozens of different ways, but I guess that is the point of interpretation. The commonality I continue to see has to do with destruction. My absolute favorite line of the song is, “It’s amazing what we can do with love with some matches and gasoline,” which again ties into the theme of destruction. Love evokes passion into a person and passion gives you the ability to either create or destroy. It’s a characteristic that brings people to great heights whether those “heights” are positive or negative.

I could be completely wrong about this song, because like I said, I feel as though some of the lyrics are inconsistent so it is hard to decipher the real meaning of this song.

It was interesting that the album, Secret Samadhi, which is the album that “Century” is off of, debuted at number one on the US album chart in 1997. I never heard of the band Live until now. I liked the fact that Live took the albums name from a state of Hindu meditation. I appreciate when songs and lyrics and titles are thought out and for specific reasons. It also added depth to the personalities of the band members for me.

Mid-way through the song Kowalczyk belts out, “You were my idea,” so he obviously has someone specific in mind. “On the edge of a kiss, smack on the lips, dangled with tongue,” is another reference to love. “Dangled with tongue” is such pretty imagery – I love the sound of that.

Love and destruction is what stands out the most for me when I listen to this song and it’s almost ironic, but from my experiences love and destruction usually go hand in hand. (I hope that’s not just me). Maybe not destruction in the sense that all things come to an end, but there is definitely a certain amount of destruction and reconstruction when experiencing real love. Whatever the meaning may truly be,  it’s a pretty cool rock song.

Talk Radio

Talk Radio, a 1988 film directed by Oliver Stone – is a love it or hate it film, which is pretty much the same case for Barry Champlain’s (played by Eric Bogosian) radio show Night Talk. Night Talk definitely exemplifies the idea that the crazies really do come out at night, specifically Neo-Nazis based in Dallas, Texas.

It came as absolutely no surprise to me when Barry, the opinionated, self-proclaimed, out-spoken Jew gets murdered right outside his studio by an anti-Semitic, Neo-Nazi during the last scene of the film.

Every piece of music, film, play, book that has ever been produced always tries to get a point across, right? Well, it took me a while to figure out what the point of this movie exactly was. The movie came off to me as claustrophobic for the simple fact that most of it took place inside a radio studio, but what else can you expect from a movie that is titled Talk Radio. Eric Bogosian truly made this movie. If it wasn’t for him I probably would have been bored and patiently waiting for the film to end. He definitely has the perfect voice to play a character that is a talk show radio host.

I think the meat of this movie really came out in one of the last scenes when the climax hits and Barry absolutely flips out on the air after he realizes that not one single soul who listens to his show night after night has anything to talk about. He realizes his listeners only participate so they can feel good about themselves and listen to other peoples’ misery. The entire movie Barry was this completely self-loathing guy, but towards the end when he goes off on his rant he starts to truly believe that he is so much better than these sorry people, who have nothing meaningful to say. Barry’s listeners call in and talk about ignorant nonsense.

“You’re fascinated by the gory details! You’re mesmerized by your own fear. You revel in floods, car accidents, unstoppable diseases, you’re happiest when others are in pain. That’s where I come in isn’t it? I’m here to lead you by the hand through the dark forest of your own hatred and anger and humiliation,” said Barry.

I completely agree with Barry. This dramatic scene really made this movie for me when Barry just lets all of his listeners have what he really thinks of them. So many people hate him and they hate his show, but yet they have nothing better to do with their sad little lives but listen to a radio show that they absolutely loathe. Barry even mentions that we have this amazing technology, including the radio and what do we do with it? We talk about being terrified of garbage disposals, we make pranks that our friends just overdosed, we ramble about ridiculous Neo-Nazi principles, and we even talk about how were just so pathetic and lazy. It’s clear that Barry doesn’t want his radio show to be such a joke – he wants to break grounds and really do something with the gift he was given and the power he really has to reach people, but the truth is these people can’t be reached. They can’t be helped.

“Everything is screwed up and you like it that way don’t you!” And that’s the truth.

The truth, and the best scene of this movie:

“Mad Men,” Season One, Episode 4: “New Amsterdam”

Peter Campbell

I still don’t like him, but I’ve reached a new level respect for Pete Campbell. This episode exemplified Campbell’s will to be his own man.  I couldn’t believe that Draper fired him right then and there when Campbell went behind his back on the Bethlehem Steel account – breaking all sorts of ethical rules. But of course politics always comes into play when it comes to business and Bertram Cooper (played by Robert Morse) of Sterling-Cooper rejected Draper’s plea to have Campbell fired because Campbell is a Dykman, an extremely wealthy revolutionary war family that owns practically half of the city. In other words, Cooper just didn’t want to piss the people with deep pockets off, which makes sense.  Although, I did get pretty excited when Draper told Campbell to get a box and pack his things.

It came up a few times during this episode that the jobs of these “ad-men” consist of wining and dining clients, beautiful women, and everything that a glamorous lifestyle includes. When Campbell went to his parent’s house to ask his father if he would help out with purchasing a $30,000 apartment for Campbell and his wife Trudy (played by Alison Brie) in the city, his father declined. Campbell’s father also mentioned that he still doesn’t exactly know what it is that Campbell does. Campbell’s father obviously has some animosity towards his son, since he said, “We gave you everything, we gave you your name – look what you’ve done with it.” Campbell said that there is much more to his job than wining and dining, but I’ve yet to see that.

Campbell went behind Drapers back on the Bethlehem Steel account and took the owner, Walter, out to an exclusive bar to entertain him with two of his attractive cousins, in order to win him over. When Campbell even tried to talk with Walter about the account he quickly shut Campbell up because how was a man even going to talk business when he’s sandwiched between two young, attractive women?

I don’t see real work from any of these ad-men besides Draper, who comes home at night and actually works on his accounts and sketches ideas up. Draper seems to be very smart in the field that he’s in and I would have liked to see more of his character develop in this episode than Campbell’s, but I’m sure Drapers shell will crack as the episodes go on.

We see a new side to Campbell when he declines Trudy’s fathers’ offering to put a payment down for the apartment. Campbell wants to make his own living and doesn’t want another person to have monetary leverage over him, which is respectable. In the end, he winds up letting Trudy’s father put a down a payment for the apartment because he would not take no for an answer. It was also shocking when Campbell revealed that he makes $3,500 a year – and for the 1960’s that was sweet living. It’s bizarre how times have changed.

It was interesting to find in this episode that single women like Helen are a lot more knowledgeable about what is going on the world than housewives like Betty. Helen asked Betty to babysit her kids

Glenn Bishop and Betty Draper

for a few hours when she goes out to a meeting advocating John F. Kennedy who at the time was running for president. Betty was completely unaware who was even running for president, which I found odd because she is a housewife who is home all day probably with the TV on. How do you not know who is running for president? Maybe Betty is just too busy keeping her nails, hair, and home perfect.

I just have to mention how creeped out I was by Helen’s son Glenn, who was obviously a bit obsessed with Betty and even went so far as to watch her while she was on the toilet. He even asks Betty for a lock of her hair and surprisingly she gives it to him. She mentions later to her therapist that she is severely worried for Helen’s children and how Helen is left all alone with frozen food to eat and how her exhaustion is just eating away at her. I personally don’t see how Helen is exhausted – she seems pretty carefree and does whatever it is she wants, but I think Betty is just terrified of living that life. She’s terrified of a life without Don, but sometimes it feels like Betty could be jealous of the spontaneous life Helen leads.

One of the quotes in this episode that stuck out to me was when Draper said to Sterling, “Kids today have no one to look up to because they’re looking up to us.” This reminded me of today’s times because there are a lack of role models in the world and each generation, in my opinion, is doing worse and worse for themselves – maybe even dumber too, which is harsh to say but the American education system is poor. I’ve been coming to see that Draper is full of depth and I’m anticipating the episode that finally cracks him.

(Viewed at 2:00 PM on a Monday in my room)

I rate this episode a 3 out of 5.