FILM REVIEW - OTHER PEOPLE

Wanna see a fun movie about a mom dying of cancer?  Does anyone want to see another cancer movie?  Well, if it’s the 2016 film, Other People, written and directed by SNL staff writer, Chris Kelly, then you probably do.  Kelly’s semi-autobiographical directorial debut is based on his own experiences watching his mother be taken by the disease a few years earlier.  What he manages to do with this picture, however, is to stretch the dynamics between tragedy and comedy in a way that avoids obvious tropes and steers clear of easy, maudlin melodrama.  The end result is that he pulls the tension of this thread to such a taut perfection, these slices of life twang with true authenticity and pathos throughout. 

The story takes place over the course of a single year and it is no spoiler to say that it starts with the death of the matriarch of this family and then jumps back a year to show the road to get there.  We open on the whole family in bed with the just deceased mother, fresh in their immediate grief, when the phone rings and is picked up by the answering machine.  We hear the voice of a family well-wisher, not knowing she’s just passed, trying to offer support, but getting caught up in a botched drive-thru order while the grieving family silently listens.  This perfectly sets up the dualism of the proceedings and, within that framework, it’s a series of moments held together by the inevitability of the fate which we know is on the horizon.  This isn’t a story about whether or not mom’s gonna die.  It’s about how everyone deals with this along the way and it’s not neat & tidy or designed to give you easy footholds to grip onto as some kind of “we’ll get through this” pat on the back reassurance.  It’s simply the raw experiences and responses to them which makes this a rich palette of human emotions in all their variety.  Sometimes it’s laugh-out-loud funny, sometimes the brutality of the pain just leaves you numb. 

The film stars Jesse Plemons, who is one of the most interesting young actors in mainstream cinema these days.  In this role, it dawned on me how much he reminds me of a young Philip Seymour Hoffman around the time of Boogie Nights.  Beyond the obvious physical resemblance, which made them an ideal familial pairing in The Master, it’s Plemons’ skill in bringing characters to life through the use of deftly crafted subtleties that echoes Hoffman’s ability to do the same.  Small ticks & nuances, like his neurotic nail biting in this role, help to reinforce his character in ways that seep into our perception, rather than beat you over the head with overacting dramatics.  I know Plemons primarily from Breaking Bad and Black Mirror - USS Callister.  In Breaking Bad, especially the El Camino movie, he carefully combines his boyish sense of innocence with the dead-eyed malevolence of a stalking shark, while his Black Mirror character balances a weak, bullied real-world nerd with a sadistic monster in his fantasy virtual reality.  Here, he’s an altogether more sympathetic character, filling in as the writer/director’s avatar where his character is also an SNL writer struggling to raise his profile in the industry and also not quite comfortable with his sexual identity, something which is reinforced by his father’s impenetrable denial.   Plemons works all of the angles to capture his character’s frustration and loneliness, even as he’s surrounded by family.

The other key figure in the film is Molly Shannon as the mother.  Shannon is an actual SNL alumnus and, personally, back in the day, I wasn’t always big on her work, especially the Marry Katherine Gallagher recurring character, but her recent film work has shown her to be altogether nailing it on all fronts.  Here, she’s shown in a sequence of “drop in” moments throughout the film, so her presence on screen is never too lingering, but each glimpse is powerful and Shannon imbues them all with a distinctive emotional resonance.  Whether she’s cheery or sad or desperate or stoned or exhausted or whatever the mood of the moment, she captures it in a multifaceted, dazzling clarity that communicates so much within the small windows where we see her. 

The supporting cast is also riddled with precise little performances from several notables.  June Squibb is as captivating as she always is as the grandmother.  Matt Walsh (VEEP) works his joke store fake hillbilly teeth perfectly as the obnoxious uncle.  Kerri Kenney (Reno 911) is the perfect goofy aunt.  Zach Woods (VEEP, Silicon Valley), is the ideal foil for Plemons as the estranged boyfriend who still manages to make dad uncomfortable.  Paula Pell, another SNL alumnus, pops in to offer some bad medical advise and a charlatan religious healing device.  These and many other carefully crafted guest spots are sprinkled throughout the glimpses of this family’s struggle with fatality.

Yes, it’s another terminal cancer story, but I was very surprised by how atypically it was handled and how skillfully the emotional switches were flipped without it seeming contrived or manipulative.  It just felt REAL and natural and true to life.  Having watched close friends go through this, it all felt right and reflective of the actual messy struggle, complete with all the loose ends that a prematurely terminated life has to offer. 

BLAKES’S 7 - THE WRONG SIDE OF THE TREK

I began watching Blake’s 7 on YouTube a few months ago as my regular bedtime iPad viewing, a habit I’ve been indulging in for some time now.  I find it helps me, like a bedtime story, go to sleep faster, especially if it’s an older show that’s a bit slow and not too action packed.  This show seemed to fit the bill pretty well.  It’s a BBC series which ran in the UK from 1978 to 1981 for 4 seasons of 13 episodes each.  I was surprised I’d never heard of it before coming across it on YouTube since I’m a pretty avid science fiction fan and am very familiar with most of the significant properties of the past 60 years of TV and film.  However, it must have never aired on any Canadian accessible outlet within my viewing range growing up, so it was fun discovering something unfamiliar of this vintage. 

When I began watching it, the low budget aspect of it immediately brought to mind Doctor Who of the same era, which I’d seen quite a bit of over the years, particularly in the 1980s when the classic Tom Baker shows were airing late nights on a local TV station.  The production values are pretty similar, but I was soon to discover that the major distinction between the two would turn out to be the writing style and quality.   Doctor Who is simply a better written show, with a more focused point of view.  Blake’s 7, on the other hand, while written entirely by show creator, Terry Nation, for the first season, would fall into the hands of many other writers in subsequent seasons and, even under Terry’s hand, had a certain inconsistency which would, in turns, make it either unexpected and atypical, at best, or muddled and ethically questionable, at worst. In that sense, it was a kind of anti-Star Trek.  Where that series offered a sense of hopefulness and optimism about humanity’s future, Blake’s 7 was far more cynical and tended towards a deep vein of pessimism.  This trait helped it carve out a distinctive niche in the ream of science fiction, though it often plowed these furrows without having a clear point or message to deliver in the end product.

WARNING - SERIES SPOILERS GOING FORWARD 

The series opens with the titular character, Roj Blake (Gareth Thomas), being set up in a “sting” operation where he faces trumped-up charges of conspiracy as an anti-government rebel and is sentenced to life incarceration on a far off prison planet.  While on route, his transport vessel encounters an abandoned spaceship which happens to offer the perfect getaway opportunity for Blake and a ragtag collection of various other miscreants.  It turns out this ship, which they christen “The Liberator”, is one of the most powerful battle ships in the galaxy, loaded with advanced technology such as matter teleportation (like in Star Trek) and a top notch AI.  It’s armed to the teeth, heavily fortified and faster than any pursuit ship sent by the Federation, the fascist, totalitarian Earth based government currently in control of much of the galaxy. The builders of this ship are unknown, but this band of criminals and cons somehow manages to obtain control of its systems and embarks on a campaign to undermine the Federation whenever possible.

It may look like a sophomore science project, but Orac is the most powerful AI in the galaxy!

With this setup baked into the premise, the moral ambiguity of the show was also set firmly in place.  While this cadre of outlaws purports to be some kind of interstellar “ANTIFA”, attempting to rally support for rebellion and offer aid to rebel groups opposed to the Federation, they’re also driven by entirely selfish motives, taking advantage of any and all opportunities to acquire either riches or more powerful technologies, and they’re not averse to leaving a corpse or two (or more) in their wake in order to achieve those ends.  It isn’t uncommon for the deaths of those who try to help this lot to be marked with little more than a smirk and a shrug as they move on to their next adventure. A perfect example of this is the season 4 episode, Stardrive.  The crew manage to procure a new drive system to help beef up their salvaged second ship, Scorpio, so it can outrun the Federation.  Tragically, it becomes necessary to sacrifice the drive’s inventor along the way.  Avon knowingly kicks her to the curb as she tries to install the system during an attack and, when the crew inquire as to the fate of poor Dr. Plaxton, he responds with a callous, dismissive “Who?”.  Roll credits.  On the one hand, it’s a bold response in a situation which would have been handled with far more hand wringing and consternation in another show, but it’s also damn cold blooded and it doesn’t make any excuses for that.  

Kerr Avon (Paul Darrow) was not only the most interesting character, he was usually the best dressed

The cast, which goes through a number of key changes over the duration of the series, ranges from the intriguing to the indifferent to the infuriating.  On the “intriguing” end of the scale is the previously mentioned Kerr Avon (Paul Darrow), who is ostensibly the “Spock” type character of the crew: shrewd, detached, emotionless, logical, but he’s also completely self-serving and aloof.  He’s meant to be a computer expert who was arrested for attempted fraud.  The only relationship which ever seems to pull at his heart strings is the one with his “lost love”, who only turns out to be a traitor eventually anyway.  He’s pragmatic to the extreme and has no problem leaving anyone behind, should the situation seem like cutting his losses might be the most expedient option.  He’s more like the “evil” Spock from the “mirror” universe of Star Trek in that regard.   But he’s played with some panache by Darrow who gives him a bit of style and swagger which makes him the most engaging member of the crew.  

Gareth Thomas in his final appearance as Blake

In the middling, indifferent category is the title character, Roj Blake.  Blake never seems to wear the mantle of “leader” very confidently and often completely neglects his crew when it comes to keeping them informed of his plans or intentions, something which inevitably leads to people getting in trouble or worse, killed.  This was the case with the poor, haplessly lovable lunkhead, Olag Gan (David Jackson). He meets an untimely demise in the middle of the second season (episode 5, Pressure Point) due to Blake’s poor planning.  Gan was always an underused character, however, so his sacrifice served a similar function as the death of Tasha Yar on Star Trek - The Next Generation.  It raised the stakes for the other characters and introduced a sense they were expendable.  But the fact Blake goes AWOL after the end of the second season doesn’t actually mean much for the series other than making the title something of a misnomer.  Avon manages to fill his boots quite easily and you barely blink at his disappearance.  The fact is that Gareth Thomas was so low key and lacking in charisma, he just wasn’t necessary to carry on the show.  He does show up again twice before the end of the series; once as a synthetic duplicate in a plot by the evil Servalan that accomplishes nothing, and again in the series finale, but I’ll comment on that later.  

Michael Keating as the always irritating Vila

In the “infuriating” category is Vila Restal (Michael Keating), who, along with Avon, manages to survive the duration of the series and is intended to provide comic relief and be the “Yin” to Avon’s “Yang” in the sense of being a complete fool.  Cowardly and self-indulgent, he’s mostly prone to getting pissed whenever possible and mucking up plans as a general rule.  His character is the kind you expect to see in a low-brow British sitcom, full of smug jibes and self-deprecating quips.  He’s usually the butt of jokes and insults from the other crew, but he’s not very amusing and just gets on your nerves whenever he opens his mouth to whine about something. His value only comes from his ability to finesse pretty much any locking system he encounters. If you need to get past some security or into some place or thing, he’s apparently your man.  

Josette Simon as Dayna Mellanby

The female members of the crew tend to come and go much more frequently and with much less fanfare than the male cast members.  I do appreciate the inclusion of Josette Simon as Dayna Mellanby, who brings in some much needed diversity to the cast and who’s character lands her much more on the “intriguing” end of the spectrum than most of the others.  She’s a weapons expert/inventor who enjoys putting her work to use and joined the cast for the 3rd & 4th seasons.  She’s just as morally challenged as the rest, but she’s also charming and brings a good energy to the crew.  Poor Cally  (Jan Chappell) a telepathic humanoid who joins the crew in the 4th episode of season 1, winds up dying off-camera with only a disembodied voice calling for help in the first episode of Season 4.  Jenna Stannis (Sally Knyvette) merely disappears off the show along with Blake in the season 3 premier.

Some of the many moods of the fabulous femme fatale, Servalan

Their adversaries fall into a similar spectrum, starting with the one eyed Travis, played by two different actors across the first two seasons, first by Stephen Greif and then Brian Croucher.  His hatred of Blake is obsessive, but somewhat lacking in true gravitas or justification.  He helps drive most of the conflict in the first two seasons before being usurped by someone far more fabulous.  The ever nefarious Servalan, played with drag-queen like melodrama by Jacqueline Pearce, is like an evil version of Liza Minnelli.  Servalan is always lurking behind virtually every ploy and plot to entrap our fateful “heroes” and, though they generally suspect her presence whenever circumstances lure them into some intrigue or another, that foreknowledge never seems to dissuade them from pursuing her bate, no matter how obvious the trap may appear.  Her motivations seem pretty thin as well, most of the time, but she at least flounces about with some passion for her job.  She seems to deeply relish being a bitch and murdering people at the drop of a hat.  I often wonder how villains like this manage to keep finding henchmen and allies when they’re so notoriously fickle and faithless when it comes to their collaborators.  Who would ever want to partner up with someone like this, knowing full well they’re more than likely to end up dead in the end anyway, even if things do go to plan?  

John Savident in his second appearance on the show

When it comes to guest stars, the most memorable for me was John Savident, who I know for his portrayal of the bombastic, I SAY BOMBASTIC, Fred Elliot on Coronation Street (1998-2006),  He appears in two episodes, season 2’s Trial, as a fairly nondescript judge, and season 4’s Orbit, where he plays a renegade scientist who turns out to be in league with Servalan and suffers the fate of so many of her cohorts when things don’t exactly pan out.  This second appearance lets him unleash his extravagant style which was so iconic on Corrie, though he does have to endure the most hideous hair piece in the process.  But Savident is the only significant actor I can recognize in the cast as far as guest stars go, but I’m sure that others are more known to the British viewing audience.

The Liberator ship.  Which end do you think is the front?

Stylistically, the show is riddled with bizarre and inexplicable choices.  Everything from spaceship design to costumes to props leaves you scratching your head at one thing or another, trying to fathom the creative decisions that went into arriving at that final form.  For the first three seasons, the crew operate out of the Liberator spaceship, which looks like a microphone that’s had a bunch of darts glued to it.  It’s weird looking and one gets the distinct impression that the prop department handed it to the camera crew without explaining which end was the front.  I swear it always looks like it’s flying backwards, with the pointy bits sticking out the front and the round stuff at the back.  Intuitively, I can’t help but feel like this was meant to be the other way round!  This ship gets replaced by a far less stylish craft in the final season, Scorpio, though they do get a pretty spiffy base station that would make Gerry Anderson fans perk up when they see its miniature model glory. 

Weapon, power pack and holster, a device you might mistake for a curling iron

When it comes to hand props, the “guns” on the Liberator are another strange design choice.  They look like oversized ice-pop sticks or handles from a bicycle that have been pulled off or maybe even futuristic sex toys!  They eventually get replaced by more traditional looking firearms when they have to switch to the new spaceship in the final season.  The computer systems are a bit more interesting as they offer some more thoughtful design.  Zen, on the Liberator is represented by a large, bulbous, illuminated spheroid like protrusion on the bridge of the ship, probably inspired by HAL 9000 from 2001.  Slave on the Scorpio is a bit like someone salvaged the “robot” from Lost in Space and retrofitted it into the bridge with its round, rotating sections.  Both are far more visually appealing than Orac, the portable AI which looks like an unfinished grade 10 science project.  It’s basically just an open box frame made from plexiglass with some wires clumped together inside.  All three AI systems are voiced by Peter Tuddenham, who apparently caused a bit of controversy when it became known that he was being paid more than some of the actors due to having to perform multiple roles.  But he manages to imbue each with a distinctive character, so he pulls off a bit of a Mel Blanc hat-trick.

Blake spreads his pleather wings and then there's Gan!

The wardrobe department is where the questions start piling up fast and furious, however.  Something particularly seems to go off the rails in season two as some of the most outrageous outfits appear during that season.  It seems like they couldn’t decide on a look as they all had different outfits almost every episode, though some notable recurrences did appear.  Most notorious is Blake's “puffy” shirt, the kind of thing that would have Jerry Seinfeld recoil in horror, pleading “But I don’t wanna be a pirate!”  It looks like it’s made out of cheap "pleather" and that it was recycled from an empty beanbag chair.  The sleeves are so huge, the proportions look ludicrous against Gareth Thomas’ pudgy physique.  Poor Gan got stuck with this floor length vest that looks like it was borrowed from Bea Arthur's "Maude" wardrobe.  Then there were the mysterious “Michelin” men in the season 2 episode, “Killer”, which featured some of the most misguided and ill-conceived wardrobe choices ever created for TV.  This same episode also showcases a collection of costumes seemingly made from gymnastics mats, crudely cut into triangles and draped over people’s shoulders.  The clumsy, bulky awkwardness of it all is quite astonishing to behold.  But Servalan, again and throughout the series, always shines with a collection of Las Vegas ready outfits featuring feathers and sequins that would put Cher to shame.   

Michelin Men are ready for action!

In terms of the stories, there’s a consistency to them in that the plots and ploys they concoct usually amount to naught.  This is where the “anti-Trek” theme becomes most apparent.  Whereas Star Trek offered hope and triumph over adversity and reasoned conflict resolution, Blake’s 7 offered abject failure, despondency and disappointment.  Occasionally they manage to swipe some tech like the Orac AI or the new drive system for their spaceship or even their ships themselves, but when it comes to thwarting their sworn enemy, the Federation, things usually end up back to square one with no one the better for their efforts.  In fact, it usually costs someone’s life, so the people they try to “help” often end up worse off.  The one time the Federation is dealt a crippling blow, it only comes at the hands of an alien invasion, completely disconnected from any so-called “rebel” efforts.  This invading force is never explained or explored and disappears after decimating their adversary.  Blake’s “crew” never seem to forge any meaningful relationships with effective allies and they can barely stop squabbling among themselves long enough to decide on where to take their damn ship.  

Scorpio replaced the Liberator as the ship in the 4th season

This all culminates in the series finale where, SPOILER ALERT, after 4 seasons and countless loss of life, our “heroes” triumph and… wait…  what?  Oh, they don’t triumph?  They all die?  Every one of them?  So all this effort for the entire series was for nothing and they all lose?  Well, okay then.  I suppose it was good that they brought back Blake for one more go, even though they ended up killing him too before getting binned themselves.  I mean, as series endings go, I supposed it’s better than The Sopranos.  At least it’s in character, seeing as losing has been their trademark throughout the series. 

I know it sounds a bit critical of me, but in reality, it’s what makes the show so distinctive in that it perversely refuses to follow basic tropes and trends in the genre and ends up offering something distinctive, if somewhat morally reprehensible at times.  I can’t see anyone looking at these people and thinking, “Well, that’s who I’d like to be when I grow up.”  Blake, while he was on the show, was mostly indifferent to what was going on.  Avon was only ever in it for what he could get out of it, as was Vila.  The others just went along for the ride and, as a viewer, that’s pretty much where I was with this.  I was along for the ride, just to see where this thing would end up going.  Along the way, I got some entertainment from some questionable stories, dubious special effects and often ludicrous fashions.  It didn’t fire my imagination in terms of creativity, but it kept me amused just enough to help me relax while I was in bed and trying to go to sleep, so mission accomplished I say!  

SONG TO THE SIREN - SURRENDERING TO THE SEA OF LOVE

If there is such a thing as a “perfect” song, my vote goes to Tim Buckley’s Song to the Siren as the most likely candidate.  Ever since it first entered my life in 1984, it has been a go-to piece of music whenever I’ve been gripped in the melancholy of romance.  It’s the song you want to put on whenever you’re feeling alone or when that special someone you thought was your soulmate turns out to be another lost leader.  It’s the perfect “poor me” tune or the ideal song to sink into when you’re adrift in that sea of forlorn love-sickness.  Most people who know the song are familiar with the 1983 version by This Mortal Coil, but there are a lot of other splendid versions out there too and it has something of a fascinating history, which starts with that oddball “pre-fab four”, The Monkees.

By the beginning of 1968, The Monkees had reached a point in their career where they were able to have a bit of a say in not only their own artistic direction, but in helping the careers of other artists whom they admired.  This manifested in ways like using the set on their TV show to display the work of various upcoming visual artists, bringing Jimi Hendrix to tour with them as an opening act and featuring performers on their TV show like Frank Zappa.  On what would turn out to be the final episode of the series, The Frodis Caper, director Micky Dolenz booked upcoming singer/songwriter Tim Buckley to perform on the show in his first network television appearance.

For the performance, which was recorded live and not lip-synced, as was normally done for such shows, Buckley insisted on playing a song he and his songwriting partner, Larry Beckett, had written sometime in late 1967, but hadn’t released yet.  This wasn’t a popular decision for the show’s producers because such opportunities were generally used to promote new releases or some physical product the public could go out and buy, but Tim insisted and the appearance was recorded with him debuting Song to the Siren for the world.  The episode first aired on March 25, 1968.  Not long after this, spurred by the disastrous box-office of their debut feature film, HEAD, NBC pulled the plug on the Monkees TV show and set the band adrift.

On March 4 & 5, 1968, Buckley went into the studio and recorded a version of Song to the Siren using the same basic arrangement he’d use for the Monkees TV show.  The only addition to his 12 string accompaniment was a bit of minimal electric guitar and bass.  This version, however, would never be released in Buckley’s lifetime.  It got shelved and would only ever come out years later, first in 1999 as part of an interment only collection of rarities, and then in 2001 as part of a CD retrospective collection. 

It was two years after the Monkees appearance that he re-recorded the song with a very different, more psychedelic arrangement featuring electric guitar accompaniment instead of the 12 string acoustic.  This was the version released on Buckley’s 1970 LP, Starsailor.  In addition to the updated arrangement, the lyrics were modified slightly as the line “I’m as puzzled as the oyster” didn’t sit right with Buckley and was changed to “newborn child” on the 1970 recording.  At the time of its release, Starsailor represented something of an abrupt shift in style for Buckley, veering off the “folk” trail and into more jazz & experimental territory.  As a result, the album would require some distance from its release before people would retroactively begin to appreciate his bold adventurism.  Because of that, Song to the Siren probably lost a lot of potential fans at first.  This, however, wasn’t the first version of the song to be released.

The first ever official release of the song was by Pat Boone on his 1969 album, Departure.  Boone’s interpretation completely misses the nuances of the work by treating it as if it were some kind of novelty sea shanty.  He even crudely grafted on this ridiculous “Yo-ho-ho” pirate refrain as an intro before proceeding to bluster his way through an entirely unsympathetic rendition.  As such, it was up to the original Monkees performance to buoy the song along in syndicated reruns for the next 2 decades.  The song wouldn't find its full flower until 1983.  This was when Elizabeth Fraser & Robin Guthrie of Cocteau Twins would record a version for the 4AD label’s “super-group” collaboration/compilation project, This Mortal Coil.

Fraser and Guthrie managed to finally grasp the song’s ethereal essence and translate it into a recording which immediately captures the imagination of anyone who hears it.    Fraser’s angelic voice was the perfect vehicle for the song’s mythical lyrical threads and she became the very embodiment of the “siren” from the Greek legends which inspired the song.  Her voice sounded enchanting enough to lure any number of sailors to their doom along those rocky shores.  Along with a suitably intimate and beguiling promotional video, tailor-made for the emerging MTV generation of the era, the ingredients were at last right for the song to become enshrined as a pop music touchstone.  

Since then, it has continued to build momentum as a popular standard with a multitude of cover versions snowballing with each new generation of music makers.  Since it’s re-emergence in 1983, it has received some very respectable treatments from the likes of Sheila Chandra (2001), Robert Plant (2002), Bryan Ferry (2010), Sinéad O'Connor (2010) and Dead Can Dance (2013), to mention only a few of the more notable renditions.  It’s a song that has also proven to be relatively bulletproof in terms of interpretation, at least since its butchery by Pat Boone.  It’s a song that lends itself well to a variety of vocal styles and arrangements while maintaining its ethereal beauty.

In its essence, the song comes to life thanks to the emotional resonance it generates.  It’s a kind of tension between longing and loss and a contrasting sense of hopelessness and optimism.  Thematically, the foundational concept of it is the myth of the Greek sirens, the enchanting creatures of the sea who vex sailors with a song so alluring that they are inescapably drawn to the shores where their vessels are smashed against it’s craggy rocks.  It uses this myth to weave a braid of the feelings of helplessness, anticipation and sorrow which one is possessed by when experiencing the deep passions of romance, particularly the tragic kind.  There’s a sense that love is a doomed adventure, but that it’s so beautiful that it’s worth the price of one’s own demise.  There’s a kind of surrender to the inevitable in the lyrics.  “Should I stand amid the breakers or should I lie with death my bride?”  Should I try to resist or should I give in to my doom?  “Swim to me, let me enfold you” is the act of surrender and sublimation into the inescapable nature of it all.  It’s a kind of melancholy that washes over you like the tide.

Structurally, the song has been referred to as the perfect marriage of melody and lyric and for good reason.  There’s a flow to it all that makes every movement as natural as rolling waves on the shore.  Each line and verse flows together so seamlessly that you can’t resist the current of it as it carries you along.  There’s not a wasted meter or measure in it as it has that ideal economy of an ecosystem in immaculate balance.  The tune swells and subsides as automatically as breathing.  It’s no wonder that it has become such a favorite standard for contemporary vocalists.  

For me, and for many others, the definitive rendition remains the one by This Mortal Coil as it was the one which breathed new life into the song after languishing, mostly forgotten for over two decades.  This was the first version I can recall, which is odd because I have been a huge fan of the Monkees ever since I was a toddler when the show debuted.  Yet I don’t recall Buckley’s performance from my youth and it was only when the show was revived by MTV in 1986 when I saw The Frodis Caper episode again and had to pick my jaw up off the floor when I realized where the song had originated. I have found myself returning again and again to that Monkees show performance since then.  There, in the simplicity of Tim's heartfelt rendering, with nothing but his voice and guitar, that you feel like you're witnessing the birth of an angel.  That it would end up being the “swan song” for the TV series is somehow appropriate as The Monkees became victims of their own tragic love story, lured into their own rocky shore.  But we can be thankful that this rendition has survived in these reruns for future generations to be able to witness this remarkably intimate revelation as it occurred all those years ago.

Check out my complete playlist of even more versions on YouTube.

CAPITALISM - KAKISTOCRACY’S IDEAL

This week, I learned a wonderful new word: Kakistocracy.  I’d never heard it before until the other day when I was watching a recent video by Jello Biafra (WWJD #82).  The term is defined as “a system of government that is run by the worst, least qualified, and/or most unscrupulous citizens.”  I can’t think of a more perfect description of the current political state of the western world, particularly the US and UK.  We’ve allowed the worst of us to amass the most power and this year has been bearing the fruit of their incompetence and corruption in a manner so profoundly destructive, we’ve literally been witnessing the collapse of our civilization.  The question is: How did we let this happen?  How is it that the most contemptible, idiotic and useless examples of humanity have managed to maneuver themselves into every significant seat of power conceivable within our society?

I think the easy answer to this complex question is MONEY.  Those who have it get the advantages; those who don’t, get the shaft.  It is, however, a bit more complex than that.  To attempt to understand it, you have to look at the way capitalism has evolved in the west in the past century or so since the dawn of the industrial revolution, particularly within the last 40 years.  I think the crux of it can be found by looking at the difference between the idealized conception of capitalism vs what’s actually come to pass as a (dis)functioning reality.  To understand the “ideal” you have to look at the person who today gets inexplicably lauded by the right and condemned by the left.  To this point, it’s time for a bit of true confessions from me.

When I was a young adult, during the 1980s, a friend of mine gave me a book, The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand.  I fell in love with it.  Firstly, Rand spoke plainly and logically and without recourse to religion or mysticism.  As an atheist and agnostic myself, this was fundamentally appealing to me. She was a rationalist and promoted reason as a methodology and intellect as a value.  What people now label as a “lack of empathy”, I interpreted as mere selectivity.  I just saw that she promoted a philosophy of caring for people who deserved it and not sacrificing yourself for deadbeats.  She didn’t advocate investing time and effort into people who were abusive, unappreciative, disrespectful, ignorant or prejudiced, something which was viewed as the height of irrationality.  I agreed with that stance and I still do, at least in terms of personal relationships.  As an aspiring musician and artist, I related to the struggle of her hero, architect Howard Roark.  He was a symbol of pure creative integrity: uninfluenced, unimpressed and unimpeded by the judgements of others.  It was an attitude I sought to ingrain into my own works and approach to life.  What I gleaned from her writing was an appreciation for innovation, imagination, integrity, commitment, honesty, intellect and a personal passion to be true to one’s creative vision.  I still feel this way.  I don’t think these are negative values. 

As I got deeper into her writings, I began to learn about her conceptions of economics and her championing of capitalism as an “unknown ideal”.  In her mind, it was an economic system which was driven by a desire to acknowledge the best and brightest through rewards commensurate with their achievements and abilities.  It was also about having the right to retain and control the fruits of one’s labors: private property, unassailable by taxation.  And it was about the creation of values: goods and services of quality and distinction.  Her conception of this system was that it would be self-regulating.  That the corrupt, the crass and the criminal would be weeded out by a kind of natural selection whereby they would ultimately fail in their businesses because the public would not support them.  Bad employers would not be able to retain staff nor appeal to enough customers to survive.  In this regard, she felt that nearly every aspect of civilization would benefit from privatization with capitalistic profit motives as a driving factor.  Profit, in her eyes, meant benefiting in some way from one’s efforts and exchanges and never sacrificing “something of value” for “something of lesser value”.  Her ultimate manifestation of these ideals was John Galt in Atlas Shrugged, an inventor and engineer, seemingly inspired by Nicola Tesla, intent on revolutionizing the energy industry in a similar manner to Tesla’s tower delivering free electricity through the air.  On the surface it was all very noble and heroic stuff.

That idealism was founded on a premise which has proven to be rather unsupported in the real world.  It’s the idea that ethics and morality are somehow latent, emergent properties of capitalism.  Though there were provisions for the existence of legal systems to resolve legitimate disputes or disagreements, there was no accounting for our innate disposition towards deception and criminality.  Humanity was given the benefit of the doubt, though we have proven most definitely undeserving of it.  It’s an assumption which has proven far from true and something of a fatal oversight.  As a result, what has manifest instead of a system for championing the exceptional is an economic system with a pathological, narcotic addiction to wealth and an obsession with the ruthlessly expedient when approaching that objective.  Rather than celebrating quality and craft, the system we have only seeks to concentrate riches in as few hands as possible and then grow that wealth exponentially while sacrificing any and all values regarding human quality of life in the process.  Standards of living, environmental sustainability, respect for life: all of them are subject to the chopping block if it should prove expedient to do so for the sake of even a modicum of profit.  Whenever an innovative product is put on the market, the natural inertia of the marketplace moves to look for ways to devalue it: to reduce its cost, to cut expenses on its manufacturing, to trim the investment required for staffing and increase the quotas of productivity expected from those still doing the work of creating it.  Corners are cut, inferior materials are substituted while any and all means are employed to offer less and financially gain more.  This is the exact opposite of the process that was envisioned by Rand’s conception of the system, at least as far as I interpret it from her writings.

When it comes to celebrating intelligence and achievement, in practical application and based on a continuous downward spiral of cost cutting and quality reduction, those attributes are seen as hindrances in our real world manifestation of the “free market”.  Ethics and morality are therefore inconvenient because they identify the shortcomings and contradictions inherent within that process.  The system, as it stands, depends on a sociopathy and psychopathy which divorces itself from any form of empathy as a means to enact the most brutal and harsh conditions conceivable in order to achieve its ends.  The result is a form of anti-intellectualism which seeks to stifle rationality and reason while distracting the populace from critical examination with mind-numbing trinkets of fascination in the hopes that people won’t realize the nature of the system bleeding them dry.  That’s assuming the populace has managed to grumble enough to convince their masters to indulge such diversions.  More commonly, simple naked force is used in less developed societies to compel people to participate in their own abuse.  In the end, we find ourselves being lead by the nose by idiotic and incompetent criminals who are incapable of even the most meager critical insights.

During a brief period in the mid-20th century, this rigid division between “have” and “have not” was mitigated by an era of upward mobility which created an effective middle class population.  Unionization and labor standards enabled people to build personal wealth without having to inherit it.  This became the “American dream”: the ladder up which supposedly anyone could climb. Well maybe you could ascend it if your skin was the right color.  Of course there were some exceptions permitted to disprove and obscure the rule, but the majority still found themselves nailed to their crosses for the duration.  However, as we’ve begun to reach a breaking point in terms of resources and impacts to our environment, those in power, aided by those who did manage to climb the ladder, have pulled that ladder up and have been steadfastly working towards undoing any progress made in the previous century.  There has since been a systematic dismantling of the societal framework which so many worked to create through two world wars and countless social movements.  The system, in the end, continues to perpetuate itself, but how?

The primary means by which this sort of social order can survive for any length of time is by virtue of privilege, by rigging the game so only those on the inside can win while everyone else merely subsists or sinks entirely.  Money is the ticket into this cabal of incompetence.  Those born into wealth and privilege are beneficiaries while those who suffer poverty, often aggravated by their skin color and geographic heritage, are denied and abused.  Though this is an initial driver in sustaining this system, there are two other key factors involved.

The second ties back to Rand’s other major work, Atlas Shrugged, which describes a world where the intelligent and the capable abandon civilization to its follies and fools while choosing to live isolated from it all as the rest of the world collapses.  In a sense this is very much the case with our modern world as so many of the able and intelligent of it have given up any hope of change.  Buddhism refers to the “Trance of Sorrow”, which is one of the first stages upon the road to enlightenment.  It is the point at which the adept realizes the hopelessness of existence, expressed by consciousness of mortality, and is tempted to give up on life.  This is where we have lost most of our intelligentsia as they have withdrawn from the world and do not endeavor to participate in its development.  And this is not an unreasonable tactic.  I have, for much of my adult life, felt like the state of the world is beyond my ability to influence and that the only path forward is to simply let it fail or even give it a nudge closer to the edge whenever that option presented itself.  It’s an assumption that change will only happen when the current system collapses and we finally have an opportunity to begin anew.  There’s still a significant part of me which is convinced this is a viable strategy.

The third factor in sustaining this system is the so-called “democratic” process and its inexorable tendency to reinforce the lowest common denominator.  It’s another form of inertia which tends towards an overall dumbing down and oversimplification within the culture.  When you have an uninformed, ignorant electorate, they’re going to make bad decisions and support incompetent people and irrational propositions.  The system takes great efforts to ensuring that the voting populace, or those who are allowed to vote, is kept distracted, docile and distant from any understanding of the issues or any comprehension of the qualities necessary to govern effectively.  The cult of celebrity is used in this regard to foist candidates onto the ballot based on popularity and personality.  It’s not necessary to master any skills or command any expertise in any area as long as you’re able to perform sufficiently for the amusement of whomever you wish to scratch an “X” next to your name. When the above three key factors are taken together, the manifestation of rule by the incompetent is not only feasible, but inevitable. 

What I find perplexing is how someone like Ayn Rand has been embraced by the conservative, religious right.  Having significant familiarity with her works, her message still remains, in my mind, diametrically opposed to theirs.  She was an atheist, for one.  She was a strict rationalist who abhorred the concepts of faith and mysticism.  Her conception of capitalism is still miles away from the “greed is good” corruption and predatory nature of the sharks prowling the economic waters since the dawn of the Reagan era.  She despised him and everything he represented.  There is cause to consider the possibility that Rand’s principals and values have been deliberately co-opted by the alt-right in order to subvert them and undermine the very tools which could be used to defeat them.  She was far from perfect, but her basic conceptions of rationality and reason remain, I contend, quite sound.  These same principals can be found enshrined in the likes of groups like The Satanic Temple, one of the foremost politically adept anti-fascist organizations currently active in the US, who are diligently working against allowing theocratic tendencies to destroy the separation of church and state in that country.

I’m well aware, at this stage of my life, of where Rand’s philosophy has failed in terms of providing some kind of balance between “selfishness” as a “virtue” and empathy as a necessity for creating an ethical, morally sound civilization.  Strict adherence to purely rational processes must also be balanced by the recognition of emotional responses.  Logic will always have a limit beyond which intuition has to fill in the gaps because omniscience does not exist.  Being concerned with one’s own welfare shouldn’t negate or be mutually exclusive of the ability to care for the well-being of others.  The concept was NOT simply selfishness as an end in itself, but rational self-interest where one didn’t simply act on whims but with reasoned consideration of results and consequences.  This can be seen again in the sloppy interpretations of Aleister Crowley’s “do what thou wilt” axiom, where people misinterpret it as a license for wanton indulgence without responsibility.  Being true to one’s natural tendencies cannot be pursued in a vacuum, unconcerned with the impacts on the world around us.  We should be able to comprehend that when others suffer and are left in positions of poverty and squalor it drags all of us down and, as we’ve witnessed first hand this year, makes us all susceptible to physical threats like pandemics and disease. 

We are all interdependent and when it comes to societal infrastructures, capitalism as it currently operates, divorced from all consideration of its impacts, cannot be used as a method for managing most aspects of that framework.  Corporations, in this environment, become thoughtless monstrosities which only seek to ensure their own fiscal well-being without any consideration for the world in which they exist.  The people who maintain them are not in control.  Like dead-eyed sharks, they mindlessly function only by rote mechanics.  They merely respond to stimulus in terms of seeking out solutions to monetary issues.  The human component is no more than a tangential consideration and only so far as they are necessary to perform essential functions.  When they can be replaced by machinery or computers or cheaper labor pools, they are chucked into the bin without any hesitation.

There is a place for a market of exchange of goods and services and it can be a mutually beneficial system when done fairly and with a sense of caring for your trading partners.  When you don’t view people as prey, you don’t seek to leave them as carcasses after you’ve done business with them.  Marketplaces cannot be left to their own devices in terms of oversight.  Rand’s contention that they would somehow moderate themselves was wholly ignorant of human nature.  You must have some sort of regulations in place to ensure fairness in the system and observance of considerations in terms of things like environmental and societal impacts as well as public safety.  There have to be formal standards and practices which are recognized and accredited to ensure objective adherence and consistent observance.  These things are necessary to ensure things like food isn’t contaminated and appliances don’t burst into flames and burn houses down.  This kind of bureaucracy is essential within a civilized marketplace.

Outside of this, in areas like the legal system, policing, medicine, education and public works (highways, power, water & sewage, etc.), financial profit cannot be used as a motive for operation in any way.  These things form the framework of a civilization and must function as mutually beneficial to all participants in that society.  They should seek to only operate within agreed-upon budgets funded by public input through reasonable taxation of the marketplace.  Healthcare is a perfect example of how this can go very wrong when driven by profit motives.  Curing illness is no longer the goal in western medicine.  Rather, maintaining it is the objective because that’s how you keep people coming back for more of your medications and treatments.  You don’t want them better because then they’re no longer a source of profits.  Even in a semi-socialized system, it becomes a completely counter-intuitive process.

Though the situation is quite dire, I do have a shred of optimism that we might be able to reform ourselves before we hit rock bottom: that place beyond redemption from which we may not be able to find recovery.  The thing about a kakistocracy is that it is, ultimately, run by mostly very ignorant people and that is an advantage for the rest of us.  They understand neither subtlety, craft nor cunning.  Watching that orange buffoon in the White House is proof that the only thing he comprehends is the bludgeon.  “TRUMP SMASH” is his only strategy.  He may be abetted by a few possessing a modicum of guile, but their objectives are still primal and primitive: power and wealth.  Enlightenment is something they are incapable of grasping nor aspiring towards.  They prefer to hunker in their shrouded bunkers, hoarding their bangles and beads, thinking these things represent true value and failing to understand that life is about experience and engagement and how you live it.  That’s not to say there aren’t a handful of particularly malevolent people possessing enough intelligence to put forward some effective strategies.  If it weren’t for these provocateurs, the conservative grip on the political main stage would have no chance of success at all.  The issue here is that they are operating unopposed.  As long as the liberal intelligentsia remain resigned and defeated, or worse yet, co-opted by trying to sustain the current system in a kind of “have their cake and eat it too” neoliberal death-spiral, alt-right/conservative minions will continue to run roughshod over the political landscape.

This year seems like we’ve reached a stage where our civilization has hit the boiling point.  The heat has been rising gradually for the past century as we’ve succumbed to greater and greater influence by the incompetent and the corrupt.  We’re all that hapless frog failing to notice how hot the water has become and we’re all about to be cooked.  Once we are, we can’t be uncooked.  Our time is nearly up and we’re going to see very soon whether we’re on a path to destruction, with only the hope of the survivors rebuilding from the rubble, or if we can wrest control of this bus away from the idiot driving it before we go off the cliff. 

NURSE WITH WOUND - TO THE QUIET MEN FROM A TINY GIRLS & MERZBILD SCHWET @ 40

Though there is no definitive information on their actual release dates, I'm commemorating the release of both the 2nd and 3rd Nurse With Wound albums today as an arbitrary approximation for their 40th anniversary. Recorded in January and June of 1980, respectively, To the Quiet Men from a Tiny Girl and Merzbild Schwet represent critical stages in the initial development of this project.

Initiated the year before with the release of Chance Meeting On A Dissecting Table Of A Sewing Machine And An Umbrella, Nurse With Wound was founded by the trio of Heman Pathak, John Fothergill and Steven Stapleton. They would remain in this configuration for the 2nd LP, but creative differences would leave the project in the sole proprietorship of Stapleton by the recording of the 3rd. Going forward, NWW would evolve into an ever shifting conglomerate of collaborations with a huge variety of artists. Though some would become somewhat regular contributors, Stapleton would always remain its central instigator.

Whereas the first LP was essentially little more than a bit of a studio lark for the trio, being recorded with little forethought and little time (I believe it was a one day affair), they started to take things a bit more seriously with the 2nd LP and, by the time the third was manifest, the basic essence of the central concepts were well in place. The references to Dada and Surrealism were firmly fixed and the production values started to reflect a desire to offer some kind of high fidelity while simultaneously sabotaging it with the use of inexplicable distortions and glitches. United Dairies, the self-run label releasing the albums, even relied on a pressing plant specializing in classical recordings for their releases as the technicians there were more adept at dealing with extremes in audio dynamics inherent in the genre as opposed to other plants who were more used to the heavily compressed recordings common within the rock & roll arena. The results were records of uncommon clarity and precision within the scope of the material being presented.

The compositions themselves offered up a more interesting progression than the improvised cacophony of the depute from the previous year. Certainly, there was still a lot of clutter in the sound at times, but there was a much greater expansion in the appreciation of strategic silences. The principals of "cut-ups" were starting to manifest in the use of found voice elements, though the editing sophistication was still lacking and would not manifest into its full flower until the following year with the release of the pivotal Homotopy to Marie LP. However, the course and the evolution are clearly audible on these two albums and the progression is unmistakable.

Personally, I didn't managed to track these down until the early 2000s on CD, once online ordering became practical for me. I'd picked up an LP in 1989, The Sisters Of Pataphysics, which offered extracts from the first three LPs, but the presence of the Chance Meeting components put me off the album due to their rudimentary nature. Once I got a chance to hear these two albums in their entirety, I was much better able to appreciate the evolution which had occurred and the development of Stapleton's ability to surprise and misdirect. Merzbild Schwet, in particular, stands out as one of the few recordings I've ever heard which caused me to think my stereo system was broken. The opening few minutes had me rushing to my equipment, in a panic, thinking it was about to implode. I give kudos for that any time someone manages to pull it off.

Though they are albums which represent a "work in progress", I still find them very listenable, overall, at least as far as Nurse With Wound is considered. There's a certain ambience to them that sinks into the environment and allows you to absorb it all without too many instances of things jarring you out of your comfort zone. Of course, that's assuming your comfort zone is a bed of nails.

IT'S NOT THE APPLE, IT'S THE BARREL

I keep seeing this image shared online and there's something about it that doesn't sit right with me. I understand the intent of it, that it's trying to get people to think beyond stereotypes, but it also plays into a narrative which I think is at the crux of the problems we're dealing with at the moment in terms of understanding the insidiousness of the racism which is rampant in our civil institutions. I've touched on this a few times in the last several days and it is generally referred to as the "rotten apple" argument. Simply put, it posits that the problem is that a few "bad apples" shouldn't cause you to misjudge an entire group or system within which these individuals operate. It exists based on the premise that the culture or the system is not faulty, only a few individuals who misrepresent and appropriate it. This is the lie that sustains the injustice.

This particular image is doubly stealthy because it features a woman of color, someone who is accepted as a representative of the victims being subjugated. But it's a co-opted image. The message is still that the system is not at fault and that it's only the "bad apples" that are creating the problem. "Not all cops are bad". That's the most relevant component of this sign in the current context, but it completely disregards the corruption of the system within which ALL police must function. That system is intricately structured to place people of color at a disproportionate disadvantage. The only evidence you need to consider of that is the vast disparity between the numbers of people of color vs Caucasians currently occupying prisons in the west. Policing, the courts and the justice system as a whole, from the ground floor to the top, are designed as a way to subjugate the non-white population and keep them in a perpetual state of fear and repression.

So don't tell me that there's some "good cops". There were, I'm sure, some lovely Nazis in WWII, fine folk with whom you could have a drink and a chat with about the football game, but here's the thing - THEY'RE FUCKING NAZIS! When der Führer gave the orders, they still fell in line and did their jobs. The same thing applies to cops. Trying to bury this truth in the guise of liberal fairness is a dangerous game in this climate. It de-fangs the opposition and the protests of what's been happening. It pulls the rug out from under every viable argument that needs to be made now.

This principal applies to ALL forms of prejudice and bigotry. It's the same when people say "not all men are sexist". No, they're not, but all men must exist within a culture which has enshrined sexism into its very fabric. There's no escaping it on a daily basis. All men must live in the world where women are second class citizens. All of us are, in some way, complicit in maintaining it. We all stand by while the injustices occur and are repeated, over and over, ad nauseam. We have got to stop making exceptions for ourselves when it comes to dealing with the pervasiveness of prejudice and bigotry.

To get where we need to go, we all have to do something no one wants to do. We all have to admit to our own prejudices. There are simply no angels among any of us. We're all guilty as sin and simply pointing the finger at others will never solve the problem. We have to solve the problem from within ourselves first. I know I have bigotry and bias built right into my social DNA. It's been there from childhood, carefully indoctrinated into me by every social influence which could play a part in shaping my identity. It's so deeply ingrained, I don't even realize it's presence most of the time. It's only occasionally, like when the world starts to burn like it has this week, that I catch myself in the mirror and realize that I'm part of the problem too. Like an alcoholic who's just reached the point where they're willing to admit they have a problem, I'm standing up and saying, this is me and I'm guilty too.

So stop trying to pretend there's not enough guilt to go around. There's more than enough and it's only going to be when you start to own it that there's going to be any hope of change in this horrible, corrupted world.

THE MONKEES - CHANGES @ 50

50 years ago this month, in June of 1970, The Monkees, or what was left of them, released what would become the final album of their original era of their existence, Changes. After a mere 5 years, they had gone from the staggering heights of screaming teen heart-throb superstars to plunging to the level of "red-headed stepchild" of pop culture. Dismissed, reviled and ridiculed, they'd fizzle out like a dud firework. Or did they?

After the wild success of their first 4 LPs and two seasons of the TV show, things started to take a turn in 1968 with the double whammy of a feature film box office disaster, HEAD, followed up with an ill conceived and somewhat nightmarish variety special, 33 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee. It was all too much for Peter Tork, who split after the TV special was filmed, but they soldiered on as a trio through a couple more LPs and a smattering of TV guest appearances on things like Hollywood Squares and the Johnny Cash show. By the end of 1969. however, it was enough for Michael Nesmith, who was the next to depart and move on to a more creatively fulfilling solo career.

With the proper "musicians" (and control freaks) out of the picture, the two "actors" of the group, Micky Dolenz and Davy Jones, were looking to rekindle their chart success and, not being driven by the need to have that full say in their material, reverted to the format of the group prior to the creative "revolt" and musical director, Don Kirshner's dismissal. They went back to the record label's stable of pop song-smiths and Wrecking Crew studio musicians and put together another "pre-fab" style LP, the kind they'd been so successful with on their first two LPs. But the bloom was too far off the rose by this point to score any chart success and the commercial failure of the album put the final nail in the Monkees coffin. Jones and Dolenz went their separate ways, thus ending the initial lifespan of the group.

But what kind of album do we actually have in this swansong? It took me a long time to give it any attention or consideration. I'd always dismissed it as the last gasp of a dying concept. It was the last album from the original era that I bothered to add to my library and I only initially did so out of my obsessive-compulsive habit of wanting "completeness". When I collect a band, I like to get EVERYTHING they did, good, bad and ugly, and I assumed this album pretty much tagging only two out of three of those attributes and you can guess which ones.

When I finally got around to giving it a proper, objective listen, what I discovered was that it is actually a rather nicely crafted bit of bubblegum pop music. Firstly, you've got the vocal talents of Micky Dolenz. I don't care what anyone says, but I consider him one of the great vocal talents to emerge from the 1960s. And then there's still good songwriting talent coming to bare on the record. Andy Kim and Jeff Barry contributed most of the songs to the album and there are some great tunes in the bunch. Ticket on a Ferry Ride is a sublimely beautiful bit of pop confectionery. Even Dolenz contributes a spry tune in the form of Midnight Train, though I must say that the album version pales in comparison to the a-cappella demo version he did with sister Coco. She was Dolenz's secret weapon throughout his career and it's no wonder she's still a critical part of his touring entourage to this day, solo or with The Monkees. With a similar vocal tone, but slightly higher range, she was often the vocal "flying buttress" that helped lift Micky up to the heights he might not have fully scaled on his own.

Ultimately, while this may not be The Monkees best, it is definitely not their worst (Pool It takes that "honor"). What it is, is a beautifully crafted, neglected pop album with more good to it than bad and worthy of a second look for fans of the group who want to dig a bit deeper than the obvious hits. It was the last chapter in the first part of their story, but it wasn't a tragic one.