Pinkerton's Weblog

The Applaudable Aim of Hard Rocking

Hmm. Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Rage Against The Machine all have albums out? Am I in high school again?

Oh no! Acne!

Watching the members of two defunct bands you used to listen to form their own actual bloated supergroup has to be one of the clearest signs out there that you're getting older, and not holding statis while everyone around you ages, like we tend to assume. I managed to hunt down the latest Audioslave single today. It's pretty good -- I like it. The video's decent too. It's got to suck for the Rage guys, though. Everything they do is analyzed under such intense scrutiny because of their political beliefs. Like putting pyrotechnics in the video -- couldn't that money have been used to help purchase the legal defense for convicted political prisoners? Stuff like that. Short of releasing every album through home-made CD burning and selling it in the street with copies of the homeless paper, everything they do could be construed as selling out. Getting a nice hotel on the tour? Sell out. Using your wealth to go out for a nice meal in a trendy restaurant. Sell out. Poor guys. You don't see bands like the Backstreet Boys getting that kind of flak. They could wipe their asses with fifties and their fans wouldn't care.

Though Tom Morello has repeatedly stated that Audioslave "isn't just some one-time vanity studio project," for some reason I can't see this group lasting more than a year or producing any more albums. I don't know why that is, but I just get that vibe off them, however long-term their intentions might be. Does anyone else get this? I just look at them and think, "This is over before it starts." Maybe I've just been burned too many times. Though in many cases, it was a blessing. Another helping of Coverdale/Page, anyone? No? Well, more for me! Mmmmm. The great taste of Led Zeppelin and Whi... [sigh] and Whitesnake.

As an aside, it's not like Billy Corgan's up to much. Why didn't they ask him along? He could have carried their amps or something. He'd be like a bald, PVC-wearing Wilson, dispensing folksy heartland wisdom when the members of Audioslave get in a moral bind.

What does everyone else think of the new Audioslave? The great taste of peanut butter and chocolate? Or the bitter taste of dry peanuts and baker's chocolate? Write me with your thoughts. Personally, and despite myself, I find myself drawn into the idea of two of my once-favourite bands teaming up for the applaudable aim of hard rocking.

Human Cartoons On The Fourteenth Floor

While heading down to the lobby of my office building in the elevator, I watched a woman suddenly panic when the light on the "G" button went off. The lowest floor our elevator goes to is the fourteenth. Once the elevator hits the tenth floor, its sensors remind it that there will be no more stops, the "G" light goes off, and a further five seconds pass while the elevator slows to a gentle stop on the ground floor.

The woman I shared the elevator with, however, saw the light go off and immediately assumed we were in freefall. No floor light! Not stopping! No! She jabbed at the "G" button -- but, since it was already three seconds from BEING at the ground level, the light didn't go on.

The woman got more frantic, jabbing at the "G" button again and again. It struck me as one of the funniest displays of cartoon logic I'd ever seen from a three-dimensional person. It reminded me of the scene where Bugs Bunny, trapped in the cockpit of an airplane hurtling towards the Earth, stops the plane just feet from the ground by putting on the brakes.

It sounds kind of silly -- but no less silly, I'd think, than what this woman was doing. "Oh no!" you could see her thought processes. "The cable's snapped! We're in freefall! Quickly -- PRESS THE GROUND BUTTON!"

Seconds later, the elevator slowly eased its way to the ground floor. As the doors opened, the woman gave me a cocky look, as if to say "It's a good thing I was here." And thank God she was. I'd have never thought to press the button.