Us and Them... Over and Over Again

There's a nearly infinite list of platitudes beginning with the words "There are two kinds of people in the world." A Google search of this exact phrase generates roughly 46,000 results, although about 60% of those involve Robert Benchly's astoundingly unfunny "There are two kinds of people in the world, those who believe there are two kinds of people in the world and those who don't." In addition to being mildly retarded even by nineteenth-century standards of wit, Benchly's Law of Distinction is such a facile observation that it's doubtlessly been "coined" independently by thousands of people who have never so much as heard of Robert Benchly. It's like a comedian who claims he was the first to wonder what the deal is with airline peanuts; even in the unlikely event that it's true, it's not worth taking credit for.

Despite the obvious logical problems (the excluded middle principal, the false dilemma), most "two kinds of people" observations are patently false for practical reasons. You're either a Beatles person or a Stones person (or Beatles/Elvis)? Really? Dog person or cat person? Even if you forced people to pick a favorite in these situations, you're ignoring those who hate pets. Or Amazon tribesmen who don't know what the fuck a Beatle is. You're only going to get it right if you claim that there are two kinds of people in the world: those who are identical to me, and everyone else. I suppose you could also claim that there are approximately 6.70 billion kinds of people (as of March 2008), and they correspond to Earth's population in a 1:1 ratio, but you'd have to meet them all to define your types.

The real purpose of the phrase is to establish an adversarial, "us vs. them" relationship. Flaccid one-liners aside, the speaker is usually on one side of an imaginary divide. You can love both the Beatles and the Stones, but some people are dedicated to one being superior, and that is somehow tied up in the existence of a diametric. The either/or thing is exclusionary... it's fightin' words. That's why Chuck Klosterman's claim in his essay "33" that "there is no relationship that isn't a Lakers-Celtics relationship" gets so much play in the sporting press. Because the Lakers-Celtics dynamic is so clearly based on an exclusionary relationship, people will convince themselves of its universality. It's funny because it's true! But Klosterman's point (and most other successful "two kinds of people" arguments share this quality) isn't that you either love the Lakers or you love the Celtics. That wouldn't be a terribly compelling read. His point is that a certain worldview is shared by the Lakers (or cat or Beatles or beer) person, one that is simultaneously opposed to and dependent upon its "opposite" number. And the people who buy into this argument do so because they have already bought into it. Everyone else just stops reading because the whole "debate" strikes them as pointless, which, ultimately, it is.

Which is why, platitudes, sad witticisms, and logical fallacies aside, it is true that there are two kinds of people in the world, Captain Kirk people and Captain Picard people.


Interestingly, the notion of Kirk and Picard as an either/or proposition is even more widespread (on the Interwebs, anyway) than the tired old "there are two kinds of people" idea. A Google search of the phrase "Kirk vs. Picard" yielded an impressive 64,000 results. By my (totally untestable) estimation, that comes out to millions of words worth of nerd vitriol. There was an official Kirk vs. Picard contest that allowed fans to submit projects supporting their fictional captain of choice. There are countless lists detailing Kirk's superiority, and just as many lists going the other way. This is decidedly not a rejoinder in that ongoing debate. (It's a stupid debate for several reasons, not least of which is the fact that both men had the same job, the same mission, and the same employer... and they even worked together once and seem to hit it off quite well.) The beauty of the "two kinds of people" argument is that it does not require that either side desire the subjugation of the other. The Celtics and Lakers are supposed to try and beat the shit out of each other. Lakers people and Celtics people, on the other hand, should be able to coexist peacefully (as long as there isn't a game on TV).

The same is true of Kirk people and Picard people. The two men are archetypes, and choosing between them is both unnecessary and fruitless; depending on where you fall on the nature/nurture debate, it's possible that we're all one or the other from birth anyway. You know the stereotypes: The Kirk person is passionate, loyal, lusty, brash, and quick to action. The Picard person is refined, noble, dedicated to reason and negotiation. The Kirk person likes sex, beer, and shirtless fighting. The Picard person likes romantic poetry, wine, and fencing. Kirk is fiery, Picard is sensitive. Put in the most flattering terms, Ernest Hemingway is a Kirk, while Noam Chomsky is a Picard. In less-than-flattering terms, Matthew McConaughey is a Kirk and James Lipton is a Picard.

Kirk people: prone to shirtlessness
Hell, if you were to just read down that list of characteristics, chances are I described half the marriages you can think of. (Chances are Kirk is the guy in, like, 90% of them, but that's another essay.) The supposed "opposition" of Picard and Kirk really breaks down to differences in approach and temperament, and only those who identify with one or the other in the first place feel the need to choose.

It will always be true that there are two kinds of people in the world, Captain Kirk people and Captain Picard people. Luckily, there's room enough in the universe for all of us.

Secret Squares: The Triumphant Return

Don't want to duplicate posts, so head over to the Secret Squares site for full details...

Come Hungry. Leave Happy.

I love (or, more accurately, used to love) the International House of Pancakes. It's way before my time, but this unbelievably bizarre 1969 commercial has brought those old feelings rushing back...



"Of course it says pancakes on the outside, but there's a lot more on the inside." Evidently "a lot more" includes a deranged, acid-damaged chipmunk.

During my "extensive research" for this "piece," I discovered that IHoP is currently celebrating its fiftieth year. The flapjack flagship, if you will, opened in Toluca Lake, California, in 1958. (Sadly, there isn't a single IHoP in Toluca Lake these days.) Impressively, the chain was already adding locations a mere two years later, and by 1963 "International Industries" had reached conglomerate status, acquiring several other brands (including Orange Julius and something called The Original House of Pies).

The classic lineup: blueberry, boysenberry, butter pecan, and strawberry

And yet, despite my very happy IHoP memories from the early 1980s, it seems the chain's descent into mass-market pablum began with two pivotal shifts in the 1970s: In 1973 the company officially embraced the "IHOP" acronym in its marketing materials; and in 1979 they built their last A-frame building.

Remember when you couldn't order the Rooty Tooty Fresh & Fruity breakfast without everyone thinking you were a great big HOMO?(Here's another example of America's Fresh&Fuityphobia.)

I haven't had an IHoP pancake in years because a) I haven't been on a road trip with my dad since I was a teenager; b) you can't really get decent chain food in Manhattan; and c) the franchise has gradually become just another strip-mall symbol of America's slackening jaw and thickening waistline... after all, last year IHoP purchased Applebees. It's hard to consider something a special treat when it's traded on the Nasdaq (IHP) and the iconic building has been replaced by thousands of shitty looking blue monstrosities. According to Wikipedia, "As of September 30, 2007, the chain had 1,328 restaurants in 49 states, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Canada, and Mexico." Hell, these days they use "International House of Pancakes" as a "secondary name."


Anyway, the company's official timeline, along with the Wikipedia entry, make for fascinating -- if ultimately depressing -- reading. I did use the restaurant locater to find my nearest IHoP: just a block from the Hoyt/Schermerhorn subway stop in Brooklyn. I won't be eating pancakes in that neighborhood anytime soon, so I'll have to wait until the next road trip.

At least now they have cool celebrity spokespeople...

The Big Sleep at Mercury Lounge, 2/21/08

You read that right. The Big Sleep at Mercury Lounge...again. Sound was a little muddy, but we had a nice time. And I took artsy-fartsy pictures.






I'll post the full set on Flickr is the site ever gets fixed. In the meantime, I also took somemuddy sounding, not-so-tasty (once I compressed it for YouTube, that is) video...

Artisanal Cocaine: For Those Who Demand the Very Best

My good friend Josh at Dilettante Films has finally hit the big time. (And if you look closely, you'll even see fellow Secret Square Tye in the background at the video's end.)

Band of Horses at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple, 2/14/08

Now I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Gee, this site used to consist of more than incessant (and sub-par) concert photos."

You are not wrong. *Bitter Defeat* has been something of a one-trick pony over the past month. I have no compelling excuse (although I have several not-very-compelling excuses). I can only promise to try harder to focus on my own meandering fancies and the detritus of popular culture.

And now back to the middling photos and half-assed concert reviews...



Despite slightly muddy sound and the fucking travesty that is the "beer ticket," Brooklyn Masonic Temple is a very cool venue. It was like seeing a show in a high school gymnasium circa 1961, minus the taffeta and cats-eye glasses. The band played an energetic set (especially during the show's latter half), culminating in a fantastic (and totally unexpected) cover of Chicago's "Feelin' Stronger Every Day," sung by keyboardist Ryan Monroe. Monroe has upped BoH's "bar band" quotient by roughly three hundred percent, and a Doobie Brothers cover is always just around the corner. (He always makes me think of Jeff Healey, the Double Deuce's blind slide guitar player in Road House.)


It was a nice down-home Valentine's Day for the whole family, with more beards, flannel, and trucker hats than you could shake a stick at. In other words, it was a typical night in Brooklyn.



(Full image set at Flickr)

Nada Surf at Music Hall of Williamsburg (2/7/08) and Bowery Ballroom (2/8/08)

Two nights of seamless power-pop with New York's very own Nada Surf! Despite their reputation among the general public as a 1990s Alternative Nation one-hit wonder thanks to 1996's "Popular" (MP3), Nada Surf has amassed a large and die-hard indie-rock following. And although their latest album, Lucky (which came out last Tuesday) is good-not-great, they put on one hell of a live show. Highlights on both nights included "Blonde on Blonde," "Happy Kid," "Always Love," new track "Ice on the Wing" (MP3), and a show-stopping version of "Killian's Red" (MP3).

Unfortunately when I took out my camera to grab some shots of the Williamsburg show, I realized the battery was still at home charging. As for the Bowery show the following night, it was one of the darkest, reddest shows I've seen in a long time. Which means my pictures pretty much suck. (Check out the "entire" set at Flickr. Hopefully Redboy will post his shots soon. **UPDATE: Redboy's pix are up.)




The show culminated in the most well-behaved stage invasion of all time...


And here's some (surprise, surprise) dark, red-lit video of "Blonde on Blonde"...



Finally, some bad news and some good news:

First, the bad news. Criminally underrated American cinema icon Roy Scheider passed away yesterday at the age of 75. Best known for playing a cop (or a spy) in almost every cool movie of the 1970s (including Klute, The French Connection, The 7-Ups, Jaws, The Marathon Man, and Sorcerer), Scheider continued to do great work well into the 1990s, from All That Jazz, Blue Thunder, and 2010 to gritty neo-noir projects like 52 Pick-Up and Romeo Is Bleeding. In a weird way, it's akin to losing a really cool older brother.

We'll all miss you, Chief Brody.

Now for the good news. As reported at Gothamist, Brooklyn's McCarren Park Pool, possibly the city's the best overall summer music venue, will apparently be around for one more concert season. Maybe I'll learn to use my camera before then.

Vampire Weekend @ Bowery Ballroom January 30, 2008

Indie-blog flavor of the month Vampire Weekend brought their Talking Heads-meets-The Feelies vibe to a packed Bowery Ballroom last night, baiting New Yorkers with pro-Patriots rhetoric, and then re-winning hearts with cheerfully low-cal beat-pop. I haven't quite figured out how I feel about these guys. They're incredibly tight live, but there's something slight about their music. It's as if they aren't quite sure how seriously to take themselves. Given the fact that 80% of their lyrics are about college, youth may be a factor.

[Additional photos at Flickr]
Rock-crit considerations aside, the band sounded terrific and a good time was had by all. Here's some tropical guitar action caught on video...

(Also... Shots from the previous night's show on Pitchfork, and a Vampire Weekend Guest List to boot.)

One bit of unrelated ephemera: Check out Sleeveface immediately.

God Bless the USA

It is a proud time to be an American. After tonight's State of the Union address (Baby GeeDubya's last), we are sure to be prouder still.

America, the land of plenty, where all who dwell enjoy freedom of choice amid an embarrassment of riches. (We are free, for example, to wantonly mix metaphors.) The choices facing American moviegoers this weekend, however, may explain why the terrorists hate our freedom (to paraphrase David Cross). On the one hand we had Rambo, an unholy cross between classic batshit vanity project and populist kill-lots-of-brown-people brutality-fest. On the other, Meet the Spartans, an equally unappetizing mishmash of (what I presume to be) already-dated pop-culture references, strung together with fart jokes, juvenile homophobia, and countless variations on the collision of projectile and crotch. One thing's for sure: that's a uniquely American set of choices.

And so, being an American, I chose. Unfortunately, I did not choose "c) None of the above," even though I knew this to be the correct answer. Instead, I chose to see what happens when a 61-year-old pumps himself full of elephant growth hormone in order to mumble incoherently and blow shit up for 90 minutes. What happens is one's I.Q. drops precipitously. I am doubtlessly stupider today than I was yesterday. Much more stupider. In addition, I never want to stop showering. If it were possible to remove my brain and wash it, I would. Never has man's inhumanity to man been so gleefully sprayed across the silver screen. No amount of ironic distance could hold back the tide of objectionable material; a thick, clotted wave of rape, decapitation, limb removal, baby tossing, flamethrowing, and blatant machete misuse. There isn't enough "meta" in the collected works of Roland Barthes to separate one's consciousness from Rambo's infectious bloodlust and all-consuming stupidity.

And also, like a good American, I had a wonderful time. Sure, I could break my arm patting myself on the back because we laughed our way through the film and felt tired and dirty and guilty and violated afterwards. But you know what? Rambo still got our $11.25. Tongues in cheeks or not, we still had a blast watching human bodies get turned into piles of raspberry jelly.

And so tonight, when Good Ol' Boy #1 gets up and dangles that pretty $600 check in my slack-jawed face, I'll probably just giggle, drool, and fantasize about all the violent games I can play on that brand new XBox 360 I'm gonna buy.
GOD BLESS AMERICA.

Friday Quickie

I have no idea whether this video is legit, but I can't resist because Kim's description was so priceless:

"A bird poops in a loser's mouth"

Dead Meadow @ Bowery Ballroom, 1/16/08

Matador's finest psych/metal/groove-meisters, Dead Meadow, played a smashing set at Bowery Ballroom this past Wednesday in support of their upcoming album, Old Growth (which streets on February 5). Minds, they were blown. More distortion pedals that you could shake a stick at. Flannel; moustaches; sweet, sweet grooves: the airbrushed-van-and-skull-bong vibe was in full effect. Needless to say, the venue smelled like a Rastafarian wedding.



In the spirit of true heaviness, the band employed not one but two--count 'em two--Orange Music Electronic Company stacks.


The Orange stack brings the heavy (as evidenced by the name of their Thunderverb amplifier head), and its presence on stage is always cause for celebration. (Check out the FULL PHOTO SET at Flickr.) (Redboy got some [depressingly superior] shots as well.)

In totally unrelated news, the full Coachella lineup has been announced. No My Bloody Valentine. No Radiohead. Yes Jack Johnson. Yes Slightly Stoopid. Yes Roger Waters doing Dark Side of the Moon without the other members of Pink Floyd. Most pathetic festival lineup of all time? If not, it's certainly on the short list.

The Big Sleep @ Mercury Lounge, New Year's Eve

Truly a New Year's Rockin' Eve at downtown Manhattan's Mercury Lounge. The Big Sleep played a scorching set of old favorites, tracks from their new album, and, naturally, a 100% instrumental Led Zeppelin medley. Faces were rocked off. Ears were injured. A truly wonderful way to ring in 2008.

As you can probably tell, I was also breaking in a brand new camera. Needless to say I had not yet spent any quality time with the instruction manual when these shots were taken.



While my mastery of the photographic arts remains a work in progress, I was able to shoot a brief snippet of decent video:

Onward and upward with the arts! Happy New Year!

LISTMANIA! 2007THE 25 BEST ALBUMS OF 2007PART II: THE TOP 10

**If you missed albums 25–11, you may want to catch up first. Or not. Free country.**

BITTER DEFEAT'S 25 BEST ALBUMS OF THE YEAR, PART TWO

10. Tegan and Sara – The Con

Applying the term "power pop" to The Con seems ridiculous at first, mainly because the drums don't kick in until 1:20 into the album's second song. But from then on the hooks just keep coming. Even more polished and accessible (in the best sense) than 2004's excellent So Jealous, The Con also takes on a darker, more world-weary tone; check out the doleful piano in "Back in Your Head" and "Soil, Soil" and you'll see what I mean.

9. Kevin Drew – Broken Social Scene Presents: Kevin Drew Spirit If...

As the title suggests, this is basically a new Broken Social Scene album, only with more beautiful Kevin Drew songs and fewer instrumental freakouts. So how you feel about this album relative to the rest of the band's output will probably be determined by how you feel about the previous sentence.

8. Panda Bear – Person Pitch

"Sounds like..." sentences are always an iffy proposition (and tend to alienate half the people reading anyway), but Panda Bear prove especially tricky to nail down. That said, it sounds like The Mamas & The Papas dropped a bunch of acid and recorded an album in an airplane hanger on Mars. Consisting solely of Noah Lennox (of Animal Collective), Panda Bear marries weird atmospherics and Wall-of-Sound echo effects to produce the most ethereal pop album of the year. Despite that last sentence, this is not the thinking man's Enya.

7. Band of Horses – Cease to Begin

Relocating to South Carolina had an obvious impact on these guys: opening track "Is There a Ghost" notwithstanding, BoH have largely eschewed the massive waves of guitars from last year's debut album in favor of love songs and more straightforward southern-fried rock. I'll admit I miss the dreamier aspects this time around, but it's hard to complain about something this fun. "The General Specific" and "Marry Song" in particular bear the imprint of rootsier influences, from The Band right through the Rolling Stones' "country honk" phase. If any 2007 album could be embodied by a twelve-pack of Bud cans, this was it.

6. The Arcade Fire – Neon Bible

I was late to the party on the debut album, and this one took me a while as well. The reasons this time around are twofold: First, The Arcade Fire make "grower" music of the highest order; second (and this would undoubtedly be hotly debated by the band's internerd devotees), Neon Bible opens with its weakest tracks. "Black Mirror" is the worst song on the album, and the whole enterprise never really hits a stride until the double-whammy of "Black Wave/Bad Vibrations" and the brilliant "Ocean of Noise." That said, when things finally get rolling the band more than lives up to the ridiculous expectations set by Funeral and the re-released self-titled EP. (And speaking of the EP, Neon Bible's reworked version of "No Cars Go" is utterly inferior to its predecessor.)

5. White Rabbits – Fort Nightly

Preppy, slightly aloof boys with boarding-school looks and a penchant for ringing guitars, bombastic percussion, and antique barroom piano. Yeah, I would have guessed The Walkmen as well. Although comparisons between the two are somewhat apt, White Rabbits have a more varied rhythmic approach, employing the occasional 4-4 beat along with elements of sea shanties, mariachi, ska, and music hall. Along with the fantastic one-two punch of Greg Roberts and Stephen Patterson on vocals, the genre-hopping lends the proceedings a sense of fun, snotty menace reminiscent of early Madness and Dexy's Midnight Runners.

4. Radiohead – In Rainbows

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Radiohead are brilliant. This album really does get more amazing with each listen. Amnesiac notwithstanding, they are clearly the greatest working band on Earth.

3. Spoon – Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga

On their sixth studio album, Britt Daniel and Jim Eno owe very special thanks to... black people! From the blue-eyed Motown of "You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb" to the slinky funk of "Don't You Evah," Spoon help put the lie to Sasha Frere-Jones's "controversial" horseshit about there being no soul left in indie rock. Spoon's trajectory over the course of six albums has been astonishing, and it seems that they outdo themselves every year.

2. LCD Soundsystem – Sound of Silver

Not bad for the band that placed at the very top of the 2005 album list. What Sound of Silver gives up in sheer danceability, it more than makes up for in heart; "All My Freinds," "Someone Great," and "New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down" inject genuine human feeling into a genre that's usually stuck in one gear. Also... cowbells.

1. Deerhunter – Cryptograms

Suffused with meandering aural soundscapes and shimmering lakes of tremolo and reverb, Cryptograms channels Brian Eno by way of the more dissonant sides of Suicide, Neu!, and My Bloody Valentine. The album is essentially a series of ethereal sound experiments punctuated by three or four "proper songs," which give the effect of gleaming spires rising out of a swirling mist. Only, you know...way less pretentious. This was the closest race in years for best album, so Deerhunter took the prize by virtue of their relative novelty and the strength of their equally amazing Fluorescent Grey EP, which also came out this year.


Some final points about the 2007 album lists:

It should be noted that some albums for which I had high expectations (Ghostface Killah's The Big Doe Rehab and Wu Tang Clan's 8 Diagrams, for example) came out too late for consideration. And there were many albums I really wanted to get my hands on, but simply couldn't (Grizzly Bear's Friend EP, Deerhoof's Friend Opportunity, Andrew Bird's Airmchair Apocrypha, 1900s' Cold and Kind, etc.). Finally, some honorable mentions for other good-to-great albums that didn't make the cut (in no order whatsoever):

Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Is Is (EP); OM – Pilgrimage; White Stripes – Icky Thump; Various Artists – After Dark (Italians Do It Better compilation); Modest Mouse – We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank; Battles – Mirrored; Rogue Wave – Asleep at Heaven's Gate; Arctic Monkeys – Favourite Worst Nightmare; Fields – Everything Last Winter; Art Brut – It's a Bit Complicated.

Hope you enjoyed Listmania! 2007, and may you pick up and enjoy as much of this music as possible. (For a disgustingly exhaustive run-down of 2007 best-of lists, be sure to visit Largehearted Boy.) Happy New Year!