Springsteen's Working on a Dream In Depth

Even more than on The Rising and Magic, music comes first on Working on a Dream. The pop influences and melodic strengths that played a part on Magic songs like "You're Own Worst Enemy" and "Girls In Their Summer Clothes" dominate here from pop hymns to country ballads and upbeat rockers. I remember reading interviews where Springsteen and Steve Van Zandt talked about how they used to record nights centered around genres -- British Invasion nights, pop nights, blues nights. With Magic and now Working On A Dream, I feel like we're finally getting to hear that aspect of Springsteen's work

Working On A Dream aptly describes the contrasts of the album and Springsteen's entire musical persona. He has been from the start a romantic who understands that achieving dreams involves a struggle, a struggle that often overcomes those dreams (see Nebraska). As much as "Thunder Road" and "Born to Run" are anthems to chasing down the future, they're also anthems to escaping the present and the past, the "death trap" that "rips the bones off your back." In other words, achieving a dream takes work. On Working On A Dream, that dream is almost exclusively the work of love.

The album opens with "Outlaw Pete," an eight-minute narrative I described as Cinemascope Bruce the first time I heard it. "Elanor Rigby" strings introduce us to Pete and the musical sense of running that persists through most of the song. In a way, "Outlaw Pete" is an epic tall tale version of "Nebraska," a bad man on the run song, only this one starts out funny:

He was born a little baby on the Appalachian Trail
At six months old he'd done three months in jail
He robbed a bank in his diapers and little bare baby feet
All he said was "Folks my name is Outlaw Pete"
I'm Outlaw Pete, I'm Outlaw Pete, can you hear me?

As the song progresses, it gets darker. Outlaw Pete awakes "from of vision of his own death" and rides west, where he marries a Navajo woman and lives a new life "on the res." Bounty Hunter Dan arrives and disrupts his quite life, reminding him that he's still who he was, Outlaw Pete. The song ends mysteriously and sadly with Pete perhaps plummeting off a cliff and his wife braiding a piece of his buckskin chaps in his hair and calling his name. Musically, the song covers as much ground as Pete himself, with strings and "Do do do dos," time changes and spooky western harmonica. It builds to an aching combined string, organ, and guitar finale over Springsteen's ever fainter refrain "Can you hear me?" It's kind of a crazy way to open album, but the song never grows tired even under the weight of all its mixed-up magic.

"My Lucky Day" and "Working on a Dream" quickly follow. Both are instantly singable, musical songs that lack a little in the lyrics. Here, Springsteen relies on abstractions rather than the concrete details of many of his best songs. In "My Lucky Day," he sings "In the room where fortune falls/On a day when chance is all." I suppose he could mean a casino, but that never becomes clear. In "Working on a Dream," he offers "Rain's pourin' down I swing my hammer/My hands are rough from working on a dream," but you don't ever get the sense he means a literal hammer. Nevertheless, the songs work because, as with many good songs, the music fills in what the lyrics leave out. In the case of "My Lucky Day," the song picks up where "Outlaw Pete" left off -- careening drums, a lot of guitars, rollicking piano and organ, a dominating bass line, and a big rock vocal. The passion of the music makes you believe that the singer's lover is his lucky day. "Working on a Dream" is a little more laid back but has some wonderful elements like the bassy piano notes near the end of the verses and Springsteen offering some of his moaning harmonies with himself. It also one odball moment, a whistling/baritone sax break that overcomes its oddness to become infuriatingly catchy. If ever Springsteen wrote a whistling song, this is it.

Next we reach the first of three pop hymns "Queen of the Supermarket." I like this song quite a bit, but it perplexes me. It tells a simple story of a lonley man in love with a cashier at the supermarket. He sees the supermarket itself in grand terms:

There's a wonderful world where all you desire
And everything you've longed for is at your fingertips
Where the bittersweet taste of life is at your lips
Where aisles and aisles of dreams await you
And the cool promise of ecstasy fills the air

Given that vision of the supermarket, as Springsteen has said in interviews, there must be a queen, and for the singer, she works at the register on aisle two. I can read the song a few ways. One, he represents another lost, lonely character in the Springsteen oeuvre and would be at home on Nebraska. Two, it's an ironic song, a mock epic, and we shouldn't take him seriously, a stance Springsteen usually reserves for the wicked. Three, he's a lost, lonely character on the cusp of doing something about his troubles. I choose the third, though certain lyrics support the other takes ("With guidance from the gods above /At night I pray for the strength to tell the one I love/I love, I love, I love her so" is perhaps a little too grandiose). The building music supports an empathetic take on the character and a sense of not just longing but striving. The song begins quietly with piano and tinkling glockenspiel. As the singer physically makes his way through the supermarket and closer to the cashier, the music becomes stronger and brighter with guitars and drums, building up to the last verse. It grows softer again with the lines "As I lift my groceries into my cart\I turn back for a moment and catch a smile." Then it rises on the last line, Springsteen in as full a voice as he's ever used, "That blows this whole fucking place apart." Is it just the power of the smile that matters, or is the smile directed at him? I'm not sure, but following on the heels of "My Lucky Day" and "Working on a Dream" and in the context of an album about living in the moment, I think we're witnessing the moment before the moment.

Springsteen doesn't completely shed his penchant for dark songs on the album. "What Love Can Do" has a funky edginess that clashes with "Queen of the Supermarket" and the next song "This Life." The music centers on taut drumming, Springsteen's acoustic rhythm guitar, and some blistering harmonica and electric guitar. The lyrics recall Springsteen songs like "Cover Me," "Prove It All Night," and even "Thunder Road." Essentially, in a fallen world, love is the saving grace, and the singer wants to prove that to someone: "Here our memory lay corrupted and our city lay dry\Let me make this vow to you\Here where it's blood for blood and an eye for an eye\Let me show you what love can do." "What Love Can Do" is possibly the least interesting song on the album, but it plays a necessary role in between the brightness of "Queen of the Supermarket" and "This Life." Musically, it gives the audience a chance to breathe. Lyrically, it reminds them what the singers in the other songs want to or have overcome.

"This Life" wraps the thoughts of a formerly lonely man in lush Beach Boys harmonies and pop orchestrations that reinforce some of the cosmic images of the song. The singer tells his lover "At night at my telescope alone\This emptiness I've roamed\Searching for a home," and his focus on the night sky creates the central images of a the song: "stardust in your eyes," "the evening sky strikes sparks," "a million suns," "a blackness then the light of a million stars." All of these images serve as metaphors for her or her presence in his life. This man, who spent so much time looking beyond "this lonely planet," has found his home on this planet, in the neighborhood, in his car, in this woman, and he cherishes even one moment with her. Springsteen cements this concept in my favorite couplet on the album "I finger the hem of your dress/My universe at rest." This song starts big, and it gets bigger, soaring at the end with sets of harmonies bouncing off and blending with one another, then rising a little more on a Clarence Clemons sax solo. In way, it also forms a triptych with "Queen of the Supermarket" and "What Love Can Do." We move from yearning to wooing to an actual relationship.

Then for a song, Springsteen takes it all away. With its talk of betrayal and regret, the Chicago blues stomp "Good Eye" would have fit nicely on Tunnel of Love. Springsteen uses a technique he's used on his last couple tours, singing and playing harmonica through a microphone plugged into a guitar amplifier. It's not a new idea, but it sounds wild and frightening in his hands as the band zeroes in on the looping groove with electric guitars, electric piano, either a mandolin or a banjo, and some spooky harmonies. The title comes from the last line of each of the three verses "I had my good eye to the dark and my blind eye to the sun." In a strange way, the regret in this line describes the purpose of much of the album, to turn the good eye to the sun, the light. For all Springsteen's anthems, he's focused much of his energy on dark subject matter from "Born to Run" to "Born in the U.S.A." to much of Magic. On Working On A Dream, he doesn't turn a blind eye to that darkness, but he chooses to embrace the good in life.

In contrast, "Tomorrow Never Knows" is a gentle, mid-tempo country song that does turn its good eye to the sun. In this case, the sun means nature, togetherness, moments. The song doesn't completely ignore the darker aspects of life, but the singer has accepted not knowing the future and has decided to embrace the now. Springsteen sings, "You and me, we been standing here my dear\Waiting for our time to come\Where the green grass grows\Tomorrow never knows." For a man who's often written about discontent and longing, this marks a bit of a change and a respite before the darkest song on the album.

"The thing is based around its retaining tension," Springsteen tells members of the E Street Band on the DVD that accompanies the deluxe edition of Working On A Dream. He's talking about "Life Itself," one of Springsteen's most unique songs. The band does maintain its tension in a psychedelic guitars and organ swirl around drums, bass, and Springsteen's deliberate vocals. Lines of electric twelve-string guitar spark and scatter between the choruses and verses, and Nils Lofgren plays a backwards guitar solo. Again, the music bolsters lyrics that aren't always its equal. The song opens with "We met down in the valley where the wine of love and destruction flowed\There in the curve of darkness where the flowers of temptation grows." I don't know where this valley exists, but I don't want to go there. The singer meets a woman there who feels as "good as life itself." In the second verse, he could be addressing the same person or someone else, someone whose life has gone awry. It's all a little vague, but the last and powerful verse suggests a narrative of a relationship from a beginning to its failure:

Why do the things that we treasure most, slip away in time
Till to the music we grow deaf, to God's beauty blind
Why do the things that connect us slowly pull us apart?
Till we fall away in our own darkness, a stranger to our own hearts
And life itself

This verse also represents one of the central themes in all of Springsteen's work, the crippling power of isolation and its causes. It also reinforces the idea of working on the dream of love because it can slip away.

"Kingdom of Days," the final pop hymn, confronts the specters of time and mortality not with fear but with love. While the music starts big and grows with swelling strings and Springsteen's fullest voice yet, the lyrics remain grounded. When he's with his lover, time means nothing to the singer, and he finds joy in the small details of a life together. In a way, many of the lyrics call back to "You're Missing" from The Rising. There details like shirts, shoes, coffee cups, and jackets remind the singer of a dead spouse. In "Kingdom of Days," similar details serve as talismans against time, age, and death:

I watch the sun as it rises and sets
I watch the moon trace its arc with no regrets
My jacket around your shoulders, the falling leaves
The wet grass on our backs as the autumn breeze drifts through the trees

They also "laugh beneath the covers and count the wrinkles and the grays." In the last chorus, he exhorts her (and maybe the audience) to "Sing away, sing away." Springsteen's voice has never sounded bigger than in this last verse and chorus. It sounds so big, in fact, that some of the extra musical richness seems excessive, especially a string flourish right before the final verse, but making the song a lush ballad works. In contrast to the musically spare "You're Missing," which was an elegy for the past and things lost, "Kingdom of Days" is a celebration of the now and things gained.

"Surprise, Surprise" is also a celbration and quite simply the happiest song Springsteen's released. Essentially, the singer offers a birthday wish for happiness and health. Once again, for me, the music is the story. Jangling guitars and an early Bristish Invasion beat open the song. The bright guitars sound like The Byrds, but their interplay reminds me of the guitars on songs like "She Said, She Said" and "Your Bird Can Sing" from The Beatles' Revolver. The interesting minor chords in what I'll call the verses conjure early Beatles songs, as do the handclaps*, though they accompany a bridge that sounds like an uptempo "All You Need Is Love." Absolutely infectious.

The album officially ends with "The Last Carnival," a somber good-bye to E Street Band keyboardist Danny Federici. Acoustic guitar, calliope-like accordion (Federici's son Jason), and some harmonies make up the music. The lyrics call back to "Wild Billy's Circus Story" from Springsteen's second album The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle. In that song, a boy named Billy joined the circus. In "The Last Carnival," Billy's gone:

We won't be dancing together on the high wire
Facing the lions with you at my side anymore
We won't be breathin' the smoke and the fire
On the midway

Hangin' from the trapeze my wrists waitin' for your wrists
Two daredevils high up on the wall of death
You throwin' the knife that lands inches from my heart

The circus/carnival folk will "be riding the train without you tonight...A million stars shining above us like every soul livin' and dead\Has been gathered together by a God to sing a hymn over your bones." The song ends with haunting, almost spooky harmonies, voices piled on top of one another, though Patti Scialfa's pierces through them. Good-bye, "Phantom" Dan.

The bonus track "The Wrestler" from the movie of the same name fits nicely with Springsteen's other movie songs "Streets of Philadelphia," "Missing," and "Dead Man Walkin'." As in those songs, Springsteen takes on the voice of the movie's protagonist, in this case an aging wrestler. He plays all the instruments, too -- acoustic guitar, piano, a smattering of drums. The wrestler compares himself to a one trick pony, a one legged dog, and a one armed man. He sees his own failures, but he finds solace and pride in his work, even if it has created his situation: "I always leave with less than I had before...but I can make you smile when the blood it hits the floor\Tell me friend can you ask for anything more."

Like The Rising and maybe even Darkness On the Edge of Town, Working On A Dream feels like a flawed masterpiece. As powerful as The Rising is, it gets weighed down by too many songs and a few of the same lyrical missteps as Working On A Dream. Darkness suffers from music and a mix that doesn't always rise to the occasion, though the live versions do (something Springsteen has commented on before). Music isn't the problem on Working On A Dream. Springsteen, The E Street Band, and producer Brendan O'Brien create a fascinating musical blend, melding multiple influences into a powerful sound. At times, the lyrics don't carry their full weight and the music has to bear more, but there the album succeeds. What more can I say than, Bruce, "Sing away, sing away, sing away"?

*One time, a friend and I heard John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band's "On the Dark Side" from Eddie and the Cruisers. The first half of the song sounds like, to be charitable, a Springsteen homage, but then it shifts gears with handclaps and a basic guitar riff. I told my friend it had just gone from a Springsteen song to a Mellencamp song. He said, "Really?" As far as I can remember, "Surprise, Surprise" marks the first appearance of handclaps on a Springsteen song, or at least one on an album. The outtake "Without You" does feature some.

Bruce, Working On a Dream, First-listen Reactions

Thanks to NPR, we get a week of listening to Bruce Springsteen's new album Working on a Dream before it comes out. Some gut reactions. More nuanced ones to follow next week.

"Outlaw Pete": crazy Cinemascope Bruce -- strings, harmonicas, guitars, loud, quiet, narrative.

"My Lucky Day": one I've heard before, but on the heels of the blistering guitar at the end of "Outlaw Pete," it rocks even more.

"Working on a Dream": another I've heard, can't help humming the chorus, still don't know what's up with the whistling and the weird keyboards...but they kind of works. Ooh, glockenspiel on the fade.

"Queen of the Supermarket": a sad man visiting heaven, Bruce revisits Orbison...and then the Beach Boys...that bridge it something else. Waltz time now...the man wheeling his wobbly shopping cart to his car maybe?

"What Love Can Do": funky, dark, tambourine city.

"This Life": Beach Boys/Orbison/a little Beatles, maybe even Glen Campbell, a car, "I finger the hem of your dress/my universe at rest" -- lovely. Ba ba bas, oohs, ahhs, Max going crazy, Big Man.

"Good Eye": radical change, looping, howling Chicago blues, mike through a guitar amp. Was that a banjo?

"Tomorrow Never Knows": Country Bruce, fiddle and organ break, pedal steel, some great acoustic fingerpicking.

"Life Itself": another I've heard, driving, a little spooky, "Eight Miles High" electric 12-string fills, backwards guitars, "Why do the things that we treasure most slip away in time/till to the music we grow deaf and to God's beauty blind?/ Why do the things that connect us slowly pull us apart/till we fall away in our own darkness, a stranger to our own hearts...and to life itself."

"Kingdom of Days": more Orbison singing, lovely melody, just a hint of country "the wet grass on our backs as the autumn breeze drifts through the trees," wistful, quite the string flourish, "I love you, I love you, I love you," aging, the song just keeps getting bigger.

"Surprise, Surprise": great guitars at the opening, the happiest thing he's ever written? Bruce meets the Beatles. Handclaps!

"The Last Carnival": organ and acoustic guitar, good-bye, Wild Billy. Haunting background vocals, a moan. Angel harmonies and calliope. Good-bye, Phantom Dan.

"The Wrestler" (bonus track): after eerie organ and piano, simple acoustic guitar strumming, piano, and a man who knows his limitations.

Wow. Early favorites "Outlaw Pete," "Queen of the Supermarket," "Kingdom of Days," "This Life," "The Last Carnival," "Life Itself."

"Life Itself"

One Toe In's Favorites of 2008: TV

Normally, I'm happy to defend TV or at the very least its potential, especially for long-form storytelling and characterization, but 2008 was a pretty disappointing year. The writers' strike, a lack of interesting new shows, and some lackluster returns added up to a lot of dull TV. Granted, there are quality shows I'm not watching for one reason or another like The Office (weird hangups about loving the original one) and How I Met Your Mother (just never started) or shows I couldn't see because I didn't have the right cable channels (Mad Men -- I have seen and loved season one on DVD), but still, after a cable-led Renaissance for many years, 2008 felt off. Here's some of what I did like, including some older shows on DVD that filled the void.

TV

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA:

The ten episodes making up the first half of season four lived up to the promise of the season three finale in which four of the final five Cylons were revealed and Starbuck seemingly returned from the dead and Earth. The newly revealed (to the audience and themselves) Cylons dealt with major identity issues. Each had a different, believable, and fascinating reaction, and for the most part, the actors rose to the challenge. Beyond that, the creators have an end in sight, and they moved the pieces toward that end while maintaining the strong characterization they're known for. It was not a perfect season -- crazy Starbuck for five episodes got old fast -- but I admire the creators for their willingness to upend the status quo time and again and try new storytelling techniques. The final five episodes (Ha ha ha heh heh...) stand with the best from the series, and the stunning finale pulled threads together and pushed the story towards it end with grace, beauty, and surprise. In 2009, the second half of season four is off to a great start.

LOST:

The folks at Lost have an end in sight, too, and that knowledge seems to have given them and the show new vitality. Lost itself is a mystery to me. I'm not sure why I like it. I don't feel particularly attached to most of the characters, and at times, I'm not that interested in the big mystery of it all, but I keep watching. I do like many of those elements, though I'm not obsessed with Easter eggs and clues that aren't really clues, and the weirder it gets, the more I enjoy it. For instance, I'm fascinated by the island being controlled buy some sort of giant, old-timey wheel device in a frozen cave. In the first three seasons, the show's never-varying structure of present tense story complemented by flashbacks frustrated me to the point of wishing they'd stop using flashbacks completely, but though the use of flashforwards often mimiced that structure, it also added new elements of mystery and energy the show needed. Episodes like "The Constant" that mixed up the formula even more with Desmond's mind actually going back to the past heightened the sense of new-found excitement (and in that case emotion). Will the answers prove worthy of the scrutiny? Who knows, but at this point, I'm on board.

GENERATION KILL:

For this HBO miniseries, David Simon and Ed Burns of The Wire adapted Evan Wright's nonfiction book Generation Kill. Wright was an embedded reporter for Rolling Stone with the U.S. Marine Corps' 1st Reconnaissance Battalion during the opening stages of the Second Gulf War. He spent most of his time with the marines leading the charge rather than the commanders, and the miniseries maintains that point of view, which suits Simon and Burns. Like The Wire, Generation Kill says a lot about the difference between the institution and the workers. The marines often operate on a need-to-know basis, serving at what seem like the whims of those above them rather than having the overall plan explained to them. They find themselves in situations they weren't trained for -- driving through Iraq in open-top Humvees -- and usually not doing the things they were trained for -- actual reconnaissance, clandestine missions. 1st Recon is the marine equivalent to the army's Special Forces, but they don't get a chance to show that. Often, hardworking, smart marines butt heads with incompetent officers, who use the power of chain of command to protect themselves. Generation Kill contains compelling characters, black humor, and increasing tension. It's a road trip, a war movie, even a buddy movie, and though set in a contemporary war and though it questions elements of that war, it ultimately asks questions about war as a whole, its purpose, the warrior mentality, soldier versus general.

FAREWELL TO THE WIRE:

TV's great drama The Wire wrapped up in March of 2008. I've been meaning to write more about it, but I haven't as of yet. The final season focused in part on the media, specifically the Baltimore Sun, its relation to the stories the show has focused on, its role in the city, and the slow death of newspapers. It introduced one last great character in city editor Gus Haynes (Clark Johnson of Homicide and director of The Wire's pilot and finale) It also continued the stories of much of the series and offered cameos and departures for others. At only ten episodes, Simon, Burns, and the other creators had to move things along faster than usual, so they had a little less time to fully realize the newspaper aspect. Part of this story involved a fabulist (Tom McCarthy) digging himself in deeper as his doctored and sometimes phony stories collided an equally fake serial killer Jimmy McNulty had invented to create funds for real police work. At times, that storyline felt strange, yet it helped pay off a lot of elements as the season and series finished, and it fit McNulty, a frustrated, arrogant man pushed too far. The elegiac finale completed many stories, but it also remained true to the cyclic nature of the show. Though some complained there were too many happy endings, plenty of those endings were anything but, and it left me worried about this fictional Baltimore and the real one and real cities like it all across the country, just as the show had from the beginning.

TV ON DVD

FREAKS AND GEEKS:

I remember watching a few episodes of this short-lived series back in 1999 when it first aired on NBC, and I'd enjoyed them and had an interest in seeing more. Finally, I got around to them last summer when I rented the DVDs from Netflix. Created by Paul Feig and produced by Judd Apatow (producer/sometimes director of many a movie comedy hit these days), the show follows the lives of a number of students at a Michigan high school in 1980. Some are geeks and, yes, some are freaks (or burn-outs or stoners if you prefer). Freshmen Sam, Neil, and Bill comprise the geeks and suffer many of the indignities geeks before and after them have suffered. All a little older, the freaks include the rebellious Daniel, overly intense would-be drummer Nick, wise-ass Ken, and hard case Kim. Sam's sister Lindsay floats somewhere between geekdom and freakdom. A stellar student and one-time mathlete, she's felt drawn to the freaks since the death of her grandmother raised some dark questions for her. Sam and Lindsay form the heart of the show, and John Francis Daly and Linda Cardellini play them with warmth and integrity. Those words could describe the whole show, which balances comedy and drama equally, managing to seem real even in the face of some absurd moments and characters. The stories revolve around some high-school classics like romance and popularity, but they do so in fresh ways, whether that means unflattering disco clothes, stalkers, or vide presidential visits. Most of the cast has gone on to various successes. James Franco (Daniel) and Seth Rogen (Ken) are both movie stars, and Rogen has also written screenplays for movies like Superbad. Cardellini appears on ER, and Jason Segel co-stars on How I Met Your Mother and wrote and starred in last year's Forgetting Sarah Marshall. They bring many of the same qualities to the show, supported by adults like Joe Flaherty, Becky Ann Baker, and Dave "Gruber" Allen. I liked the series so much, I ordered the DVDs after I'd finished watching the rented ones. It's a shame it ended so soon, but there's something perfect and both open-ended and conclusive about the eighteen episodes.

STATE OF PLAY:

Written by Paul Abbott (Touching Evil) and directed by David Yates (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix), BBC miniseries State of Play centers on politics, personal scandal, and the press. A thriller with shades of All the President's Men, it follows a group of journalists as they connect the dots between two seemingly unrelated deaths, one involving the lover of Member of Parliament Stephen Collins (David Morrissey). Reporter Cal McCaffrey (David Simm) once served as Collins' campaign advisor, and their relationship leads to deeper entanglements. While the idea of crusading journalists might seem quaint at times, Abbott makes sure they have the right amount of cynicism, too. As much as they're after the truth, they're also after a good story, and sometimes, their pursuit and their natural reticence to share information leads to dire consequences. The six-hour length also gives Abbott, Yates, and the cast plenty of time to unravel the complicated threads and to create fully realized characters. The upcoming Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams adaptation has every chance of being a fine thriller, but I doubt it will have the space to match the original's mix of story, character, ideas, and emotion. The miniseries features a number of recognizable British actors: James McAvoy (Wanted, Atonement), Kelly Macdonald (No Country For Old Men, Gosford Park), Polly Walker (Rome), and the ever-delightful Bill Nighy (Love Actually, a couple Pirates movies, and about half of the movies of the last five years). As the leads, Simm and Morrissey convey the sense of old friends with unresolved tensions, and they use their size differences to good advantage. Simm is short and thin, and Morrissey towers and hulks over him, but Simm holds his own, and all of this reinforces both their friendship and the tensions. An excellent political thriller with excellent performances.

FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS:

I had HBO when the first season of Flight of the Conchords aired, but for whatever reason, I didn't watch it. Later, a friend loaned me the DVDs, and I became an instant fan. New Zealand musicians Bret McKenzie (Bret McKenzie) and Jemaine Clement (Jemaine Clement) try to make it in New York City with the help of their manager Murray (Rhys Darby), Deputy Cultural Attache at the New Zealand Consulate. The episodes mix mudane stories (someone, usually Bret, quits the band, someone gets a job, someone gets a girlfriend) with absurd elements and music sequences to create an entertaining, very funny whole. Bret, Jemaine, and Murray are not the brightest bulbs, and whether in pairs or a trio, they each take turns playing straight man and funny man. The lads also have to deal with the attention uberfan Mel (Kristen Schaal). The songs, written by the real Bret and Jemaine, mix genres like folk, soul, rap, techno, glam, and French jazz and have deadpan lyrics, often at the expense of the singers. Of course, in upgrading my cable, I've actually lost HBO (long story), so I'll have to wait again for the DVDs. For your delight, "Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros."

One Toe In's Favorites of 2008: Comics

I've thought about doing best-of lists before, but frankly, I haven't read, listened to, or seen everything or close to everything out there, so how can I really do a best-of list? This year, I've decided to take a look at the best of what I'm reading, etc. First up, comics. Vague spoilers ahead.

FAVORITE SUPERHERO SERIES:

Captain America: by Ed Brubaker, Steve Epting, Butch Guice, and Luke Ross.

Month in and month out, writer Brubaker and penciller Epting (with help from Guice and Ross), have told a compelling, action-packed story full of heartbreak and triumph. For the first 43 issues of the series, they told what amounted to one long story that included the return of the long-thought-dead Bucky Barnes, the death of the original Captain America Steve Rogers, Bucky's accepting the mantle of Captain America, and a complicated plot by The Red Skull to destroy America. In a time when long-form storytelling in comics sometimes draws criticism from fans, Brubaker has managed to balance the long story with issues that feel self-contained. His tight storytelling keeps things moving, and the subplots have satisfying conclusions but still affect the overall story. He built up the supporting players like The Falcon, Black Widow, and Sharon Carter so that the audience had someone to relate to after Rogers' death and Bucky had a cast to help ease the audience into accepting him in his new role. Epting's realistic work suits the thriller feel, yet he also excels at fitting absurd-looking characters like Armin Zola into the visual world of the comic. The series respects the past as it moves forward into an unknown future.



FAVORITE SERIES:

Criminal by Ed Brubaker, Sean Phillips, and Val Staples.

I've written about Criminal a few times before, and Brubaker, artist Phillips, and colorist Staples continue to maintain the level of quality. After the three independent-but-connected stories to begin the year, they finished it off with the four-issue Bad Night. Jacob Kurtz, the insomniac cartoonist of Frank Kafka, Private Eye (a recurring gag since the first issue of Criminal), finds himself mixed up with a sexy dame, her loudmouth boyfriend, and their plan to rip off Chinese gangsters. Sex, violence, and betrayal ensue, and Frank Kafka starts to give Jacob advice. Naturally, it's a dark story, but ends with what one might call hope...sort of. Criminal is on a brief hiatus while Brubaker and Phillips mix pulp and super heroes in the minsieries Incognito, which is off to an excellent start.


THE NEW FAVORITES:

Matt Fraction and Jonathan Hickman (various).

I've been reading some of Matt Fraction's work since he helped revitalize Marvel's Iron Fist with Brubaker, but in the last year or so, he's become one of my favorite comics writers. Besides helping get me interested in a character like Iron Fist, Fraction and Barry Kitson created the short-lived The Order for Marvel. At times a gonzo take on superheroes (a bear with a jet pack, acronymn-spewing robots), The Order had compelling characters and an interesting storytelling method. Each issue began an ended with one of the members -- people who chose to be turned into superheroes for a year -- being interviewed, and the issue's story and the interview would play off each other. The Order also started the Pepper Potts Renaissance (at least for me) and set in motion the events of the first arc of Fraction's Invincible Iron Man, runner-up to Cap for best superhero series. Since Marvel's Civil War miniseries, old Shellhead has been portrayed as patriot and fascist, hero and villain, visionary and dick. Fraction hasn't ignored that, and he's made Tony Stark's life worse, but he's also shown a guy capable of being all those things at the same time and a man finally seeing his mistakes.

Still, my favorite Fraction comic is Casanova, his creator-owned series with artist brothers Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon. I caught up late to this one, only reading the first collection by Fraction and Ba last winter. Imagine James Bond, 1960s swingin' London culture, Dr. Strangelove, science-fiction, a dash of superheroics, family drama, the occasional giant robot, and a lot of sex and violence, and you'll get a bare-bones sense of Casanova. Just a sense, though. Casanova follows the adventures of Casanova Quinn, a sort of super-thief who gets pulled into an alternate dimension where Casanova Quinn was a good guy. Both worlds contain things like: flying casinos, sexbots, weird, floating, sentient, mutli-eyed masses of, well, something, dueling organizations like E.M.P.I.R.E. and W.A.S.T.E., and the bandaged and sunglasses wearing villain Newman Xeno. In short, there's a lot of crazy, and if it were just crazy, it would be very entertaining, but Fraction, Ba, and Moon (taking over on the second series) do something more. They make you care, especially in the second series, which ends with a shocking twist that is more shocking because it matters, because the characters have complicated reactions to it. (Also, I had a chance to meet Fraction at a local signing, and he seemed like a swell guy).

Cover to Casanova #9 by Garbiel Ba

Writer/artist Jonathan Hickman came to audience attention in 2007 with his miniseries The Nightly News, a satire of cults, politics, and the news media. Darkly funny, it focuses on a group of homespun terrorists/cultists murdering media personalities. I read the collection at the beginning of 2008, so it counts. Hickman has a background in web design, and he brings those talents to his comics, writing, drawing, designing, and coloring The Nightly News and the recently completed Pax Romana. He uses symbols, icons, patterns, sidebars, and much more to help tell his stories, and his comics look and feel unique. Beyond that, he writes about complex topics, most of them layered with a sociological undercurrent. Pax Romana uses time travel to explore the idea of civilization and whether, with hindsight, we could build a better world than the one that led to ours. Transhuman, a collaboration with artist JM Ringuet, looks at genetic engineering through a mockumentary format. February brings the debut of Secret Warriors, a new Marvel series cowritten by Hickman and Brian Michael Bendis. It follows Nick Fury and a band of superpowered agents waging an espionage war against the new status quo in the Marvel Universe.

Two pages from Pax Romana #1 (read the first issue here)

FAVORITE COMIC I BORROWED:

All-Star Superman by Grant Morrison and Frank Quietly.

Before he said so long to monthly comics, my friend Rick loaned me quite a few DC comics. Of course, All-Star Superman didn't keep a monthly schedule, but it was by far my favorite. Set outside of the regular DC Universe, All-Star Superman featured stories that were at once full of silver age goofiness and wonder and pathos and irony more common in contemporary comics: mad scientist Lex Luthor, time travel, a Jimmy Olsen story, a Super Lois, Bizzaros, Supermen from the future, and, oh, Superman is dying. Artist Quietly and colorist Jamie Grant match Morrison's wild ideas with a bright, future-past world and expressive characters. Superman is a big guy, and using the Clark Kent as a klutz model, Clark kind of looks like an oaf -- he uses his size to create awkwardness. Like Casanova, All-Star Superman is fun, strange, and moving.


FAVORITE COLLECTION:

True Story Swear To God Archives, Vol. 1 by Tom Beland.

For some reason, I'm not a huge fan of autobiography and memoir in books, comics, or even music, but Tom Beland's true-life tale of love won me over. This collection contains the first 17 issues of True Story Swear To God. A fateful trip to The Magical Kingdom (Disneyworld in disguise), a bus ride, and a never-ending conversation lead to a long-distance romance. Beland, who lived in northern California at the time, meets Lily, a radio host from Puerto Rico, and, as they say too often in comics, everything changes. They deal with time zones, airport delays, hurricanes, cultural barriers, families, and big choices. Beland mixes humor and heart seamlessly, and you believe that something unexplained is at work in their lives. "We fit," Beland writes over images of him climbing into bed next to a sleeping Lily:

That's 98% of it all. More than love. Love is easy...you meet...there's orchestrated music and passion...it's an amazing experience. Fitting together, that's like a whole different level. When it's late at night and she's sleeping...I come to bed and I slide my arm around her waist. I love this moment. She'll scoot back until she's right up against me. It's the single greatest feeling in the world...and it happens so...naturally...incredible. And it hleps me feel...I don't know...home.

Gems: Crystal River x 2

Last spring, the band Mudcrutch released its first album, though they'd last played together in the 1970s. Before the Heartbreakers, Tom Petty helped front Mudcrutch in Gainesville, Florida, and he first moved to California with them, but after the record company decided they only wanted to work with him, the band broke up. Two of its members, guitarist Mike Campbell and keyboard player Benmont Tench, became the second and third points of the triangle at the center of the Heartbreakers. Guitarist and second singer Tom Leadon and drummer Randall Marsh found careers outside of music. In 2007, Petty reunited the band to make the album, and they recorded all the songs live in the studio. Mudcrutch sounds looser than the Heartbreakers, with hints of bar band and jam band. Blues and country influences dominate, and the pop and folk rock influences more prevalent in Petty's other work recedes.

CRYSTAL RIVER (ALBUM VERSION):

Languid and long at nine minutes, "Crystal River" finds Mudcrutch at its jammiest and most psychedelic. Petty's spare lyrics lie over a bed of his own Revolver era McCartney bass playing, almost liquid guitar lines from Campbell, swirling organ, drums laying back until the choruses. Petty sings of diamond skies and "dreaming, dreaming where the water's wide." He and Leadon harmonize on the faith-laden chorus of "Nothing can touch me here on crystal river." As the song moves into its middle section, a long, spacey jam, Campbell and Tench step up, Tench adding piano to the mix. Campbell seems like a bit of an unsung guitar hero, and here, he gets to stretch out and use many of his tricks: wah-wah pedals, tape echo, the synth-like sounds of an EBow. Still, his most important tool is his sense of melody, structure, and emotional dynamics. The band rises and falls around his choices, and he never loses track of the song and its overriding dream sense. In fact, the whole band keeps things loose but structured. They're clearly listening and reacting to one another, and despite its length, the song never becomes just a jam. It always feels like a song, one drifting in the dream ether, flowing like a river.

CRYSTAL RIVER (LIVE VERSION)

Mudcrutch recently released a live EP, and "Crystal River" again acts as a centerpiece. Clocking in at fifteen minutes, it starts out much like the studio version. Petty and Marsh add more flourishes from the rhythm section. For a long portion of the jam, the band keeps things low-key, drifting, but about halfway through, they begin a slow-burn build-up. Leadon takes over on lead, and Campbell strums ever bigger chords on his Telecaster. Marsh's drums explode with fills. In the span of a minute, they take it just a bit father than it can go, diving off the edge of a cliff into a quiet, cool pool, swimming back to the vocals: "She's sleeping, sleeping by the waterside." The song winds its way toward the finish from the studio version, the audience applauds, and then Petty launches into a loping bass line, and the band follows in double-time, adding a groove to a song that was once a dream. Campbell takes the lead again, bringing some of the fire from songs like "Running Down a Dream" and live versions of "Refugee." Tench pumps away at the organ, and now the song rushes through rapids to the edge of another cliff and ends with a rumble of drums and oscillating guitar.

The Baseball Project: Home Run

Here's the lineup: Scott McCaughey of the The Minus 5, Steve Wynn of The Dream Syndicate and other bands, drummer Linda Pitmon, and Peter Buck from R.E.M. The strategy: make a rock album of songs about baseball (The Baseball Project's Vol. 1: Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails). McCaughey and Wynn split songwriting and lead vocal duties, and between them, they cover highlights of baseball history from 1903 ("The Death of Big Ed Delahanty") all the way to the recent steroid controversy ("Broken Man").

The songs express their love of the game and their frustrations with it, often with a sense of humor. Many of them focus on specific players, and the singers often speak with the players' voices. Others tell narratives in the tradition of folk songs, and some like McCaughey's "Sometimes I Dream Of Willie Mays" offer a more personal expression. None of them revel in hero worship but instead reveal the humanity of the players and, by association, the game.

Things start out with McCaughey's "Past Time," a questioning love letter to the game. Big, bright pop-rock guitars, a catchy chorus, and some carefully placed whoo-hoos surround name checks of moments in baseball history, both important ("When Campy Campaneris played all nine positions in a game") and maybe a little silly ("The sideburns of Pepitone and Oscar Gamble's Afro"). The heart of the song, though, is question in the chorus: "So long ago, so long, Pastime, are you past your prime?"

Wynn follows "Past Time" with a couple angry songs. In the Mike Love on juice "Ted Fucking Williams," he takes on Williams' persona, demanding to know why the fans like inferior players like Mays and Mantle better than they like him. After all, he's "Ted Fucking Williams!" and "People say it's hard to like a man who doesn't fail and show he's human. But failure's not a sign of grace. It only means you don't know what you're doing." In "Gratitude (for Curt Flood)," sinister guitars and keyboards, heavy drums, and spooky backup vocals help Curt Flood speak from the grave. As Wynn writes in the liner notes, Flood "bemoans the lack of attention paid to his legal battle against the reserve clause, a legal challenge that led directly to the advent of free agency as well as the end of Flood's career. He's not amused." He wants a little gratitude from the money-making free agents of today for paving "the way with blood."

In "Broken Man," McCaughey takes an empathetic look at the fall of Mark McGwire. It's a peppy number that asks everyone involved in the steroid issue to admit their fault and move on -- the players, the management, the fans. The folk-rock "Satchel Paige Said" looks at Paige's life and some of his advice like "don't look back" with both an admiring and wary eye. While Paige didn't seem to look back at the racism that prevented him from reaching his full glory, didn't cause a fuss, the song ends with a wistful "We don't look back," implying that we don't look back at the likes of the great pitcher.

Wynn sings the Latin-influenced "Fernando" in Spanish, Fernando Valenzuela considering "the citywide love that he felt in 1981." In "Long Before My Time" (probably my second favorite song after "Past Time,") a propulsive beat and a bright guitar hook soar with the sound of summer as Sandy Koufax tries to decide whether to retire or not at the age of 30.

"Jackie's Lament" finds Jackie Robinson considering what he'd say about his treatment in his early days in the major leagues if he could. The song feels upbeat and sad at the same time, a mix of pride, frustration, and melancholy with a bit of a Beach Boys bridge. In the beautiful "Sometimes I Dream of Willie Mays," McCaughey looks back on going to a Giants-Dodgers game with his dad and seeing Mays and Koufax face off. Eight years later, he sees Mays again, playing for the Mets against the A's, and a ball goes through Mays' legs, "something I never wanted to see." Finally, McCaughey looks back to 1954, when he was born and "a mile away in the Polo Grounds [Mays] pulls it in and spins himself around."

"The Death of Big Ed Delahanty" does just what the title says, tells the story of Big Ed Delahanty. Folk-style lyrics and garage/R&B stomp mix together with McCaughey's near-spoken lyrics (adapted from a poem by his brother). Apparently, booze and Niagara Falls don't play well together. In the folk anthem "Harvey Haddix," Wynn takes up the cause of Haddix, a Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher, who threw a perfect game for 12 innings, only to lose it and credit for the perfect game in the 13th. Through the choruses, Wynn manages to list the 17 players who are credited with perfect games and asks, "Why don't we add old Harvey to that list?"

McCaughey once again combines the personal and a player in "The Yankee Flipper," this time Black Jack McDowell: "He's a friend of the Smithereens, an old pal of Eddie Vedder. For a good few years there weren't any pitchers better. He loved R.E.M. and he played a Rickenbacker guitar, but for a night on the town with Mike Mills you get hit pretty hard." After a bad game, McDowell flipped off 50,000 Yankee fans, earning the titular nickname. McCaughey thinks a night McDowell drank with him, Mills, and Dennis Diken might have had something to do with that performance. After all, "Jack loved the Replacements, and we drank enough we became them."

Appropriately enough, the album ends with "The Closer." Wynn puts on another angry character, an unnamed relief pitcher. This guy's all attitude, and so is the music -- slow, heavy, footsteps of doom kind of stuff with feedback squawls and and harmonies. Wynn almost growls the vocals and sums things up: "If you want to hate my guts, that's all right by me. If you think you've got my number, that's all right by me. But you're gonna have to stand in against me, and then we'll see."

I have to say, I haven't paid attention to baseball in quite a long time, and when I did, a lot of it had to do with my brother and some of my friends, but I don't think that matters -- good music is good music. Still, it's easy to get caught up in the romance of baseball from it's old-timey roots to its strategy and mix of individual and team skills, and having a band play songs about baseball, well, that kind of makes perfect sense. Bands have their own romance, and like neighborhood games in the street, they can start up out of nowhere and fill a summer. You just need a little bit of equipment and some desire. And thanks to The Baseball Project, eh, I might watch a game every now and then.

...Since Sliced Bread

For reasons soon to be revealed, I went looking for historical happenings on July 7, 1928, thinking something interesting must have happened. I found a few items of note, though significant might be too strong a word. In Wheeling, West Virginia, at Wheeling Park, the Madonna of the Trails was unveiled. It was the second of twelve identical monuments erected by the Daughters of the American Revolution to honor women pioneers. Also, U.S. long jumper Edward Hamm set a new record of 25'11". That was about it, except this nugget.

On July 7, 1928, 80 years ago today, machine-sliced-and-packaged bread made its commercial debut under the name Sliced Kleen Maid Bread. Inventor Otto Frederick Rohwedder had been working on a machine to slice and package bread since 1912. After years of tinkering, a devastating fire destroyed a factory set to make slicers and his blueprints. Rohwedder finally succeeded in 1928. He sold his first slicer to the Chillicothe Baking Company in Chillicothe, Missouri, and they distributed those first loaves of sliced bread.

Why all this interest in sliced bread? Well, my dad was born the very same day in Delaware into a world where Lindbergh was still a hero and the Great Depression was slouching towards Manhattan. Twenty-five years earlier, the Wright Brothers had taken their first flight. As a teenager, my dad spent much of his time dreaming of flying and spending time at the Millville, New Jersey, Airport, where Army Air Corps pilots were training in P-47 Thunderbolts. By the late '50s, my dad was flying airplanes for the air force.

Still, this bread thing intrigues me. See, my dad's father worked for the Huber Baking Company, first in Wilmington, later in Millville. One can assume the sliced bread invention had an effect on the fortunes of the Huber Baking Company and the Cowgill family. After all, it provided their, uh, bread and butter. Seems to me July 7, 1928, was quite the ausipicious day for the Cowgills, welcoming their first child into the world with the miracle of sliced bread on the horizon.

Yes, the miracle of sliced bread and all that has changed for good or ill in the last 80 years. I think about all my dad has seen so far in his life, and it overwhelms me: The Great Depression, The New Deal, World War II, jets, moon landings, the polio vaccine, the rise of the computer, on and on. Yet, some things haven't changed -- people still eat sliced bread, and people still celebrate birthdays.

In honor of Otto Frederic Rohwedder, I plan to eat some cinnamon toast. In honor of my dad, for now, I'll say happy birthday, Dad.