BMOWP Classic Album: Chocolate and Cheese

January 21, 2010


Chocolate and CheeseChocolate and Cheese by Ween

Thirteen months ago, I wrote my first book proposal – a proposal for writing about Ween’s Chocolate and Cheese. It as an open call for proposals for Continuum’s 33 1/3 series.

I looked back at it yesterday, and was pleasantly surprised. It was good, if you don’t mind my boldness. And it’s wasting away, just sitting there on my computer. So I’m posting part of it. Specifically, my two-page description of why Ween’s Chocolate and Cheese is worth considering on a critical level.

Bear with me. It’s long.

Why Chocolate and Cheese?

There is a fine line between ridiculous and brilliant.

Skirting that line is dangerous. It takes an unwavering skill, and it can’t be done without full awareness of the limits of human understanding. By working that line, an artist risks lapsing into irrelevance, forced into parody without being given a chance at redemption. Or, the emotions seem false, as if they were fighting for a joke that never materialized. As they say – drama is easy. It’s comedy that’s hard.

But when the two mesh perfectly – when the line has been pushed right to the edge, where it sits balanced like a paper football at the edge of a school lunch table – there’s magic. There’s happiness. There’s the revelation that music can be both inspiring and hilarious. That an album can make you rethink the boundaries of the acceptable. That deconstructing the typical can be just as brilliant as The Beatles, or Bob Dylan, or Radiohead.

There are some obvious examples of success along that line. Frank Zappa. Captain Beefheart. Certain songs off of The White Album. They trap convention and refuse to let it out, openly mocking the heretofore accepted standards. They make wonderful music by reworking the definition of music.

In the 90s, no band was able to do that better than Ween.

And no album was better at doing that than Chocolate and Cheese.

The Case for Chocolate and Cheese

Part serious tribute album, part rollicking parody of, well, everything, Chocolate and Cheese reaches across the entire spectrum of music, with Dean and Gene Ween grasping at every possible inspiration to craft an album that not only mimics convention, but shatters it.

Is it an important album? That depends on who you talk to. Can it be written about? Yes. Convincingly. Without a doubt.

Ween isn’t simply a novelty act. They are serious musicians – artists who taught themselves to play, throwing themselves into their awfulness with the air of prodigies. They didn’t have the skills – but they had a passion for ideas, and those ideas fought for approval on their early albums. Their brilliance was masked by shredded chords, childish lyrics and simple weirdness.

And then, in the span of a couple of years, everything seemed to click.

The response was a series of albums that defied the boundaries of music, the best being their first major label debut: Chocolate and Cheese.

At first listen, the album sounds like a label sampler, moving from artist to artist in an effort to raise awareness of minor acts. “There is simply no way these songs are all by the same artist,” you might say.

You’d be wrong. Ween exploded onto the major label scene by acting as creative pirates, stealing genres from unsuspecting musicians and giving life to the idea of emulation as art form. This isn’t “Weird” Al Yankovic – this is true musicianship, from a pair of weirdoes who, beyond all belief, had become virtuosos of both the guitar and the pen.

It’s this question of emulation vs. parody that gives Chocolate and Cheese its topicality. Ween takes parody and turns it into a form of respect. It’s said that artists feel like they’ve made it when “Weird” Al re-writes one of their songs. What must it feel like when Ween takes your style and does it better?

Chocolate and Cheese doesn’t make fun of country, but serenades it. It doesn’t mock Prince-inspired funk, but co-opts it. It reinvents the Spaghetti Western, idolizes fallen heroes and recreates the horrors of childhood illness. It does everything an album is supposed to do – drive emotion, produce memorable music and, most of all, create a feeling of happiness.

Any talk of Chocolate and Cheese has to be done in all seriousness. This album is not a joke album. While it tackles some of music’s most endearing genres, it does so with a healthy respect for the style. And though it’s dedication to John Candy may suggest otherwise, this album is all seriousness. In its own completely unserious way.

While “Push th’ Little Daisies” may have been Ween’s introduction to the world (thanks, Beevis and Butthead) and while Rolling Stone may have passed on giving Chocolate and Cheese a full review or rating (instead, it was paired with Daniel Johnston’s Fun in a short, ill-advised review that proclaimed Johnston’s album the better of the two), make no mistake – this is Ween’s true introduction to the masses.

It’s an album that deserves a chance. And as a book, it deserves its chance as well.

One Final Word

Hey. It’s me. Back from proposal land.

From there, I talked through an outline, justified my lack of a music journalism background, hyped the idea of promoting a book that had boobs on the cover and whatever else I could think of that would make someone take me seriously. Maybe they did. Maybe they didn’t. All I know is that my submission was one of the first cut.

But that cut may not have been as harsh as I first imagined. Ultimately, while my proposal wasn’t accepted, another was. Hank Shteamer, the author of Dark Forces Swing Blind Punches and writer/editor for Time Out New York.

In other words, the Chocolate and Cheese book is going to be written. Luckily for Ween fans, Chocolate and Cheese will indeed get its chance after all.

Tags: From the Moleskin, Music, Writing |

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Underground

October 10, 2005


After talking to Kerrie this weekend about my short time in England, and after gazing longingly at my map of the London Underground, I was reminded of this story that I had written while watching a science movie during a sub job a few years ago. I can still remember the exact smells and sounds of my first ‘tube’ trip — from Heathrow Airport to the Tower of London.

Underground, Jubliee

It was like stepping into a science fiction novel. Except I saw no aliens or space ships.

On second thought, I did see aliens and space ships.

Around me Londoners swarmed and swelled, each individual body searching for a spot closer to the tracks, milling around like a pack of ants. Ants with suitcases. And scowls.

Their cranky nature was due to two things: the lack of standing room in this Heathrow Underground station waiting room and the apparent ignorance of the London Transport System to fix the problem. But all together, they were what they were – a mass of travelers, people who had just been somewhere and now were returning (or arriving) somewhere else. And while the places they had just been were all in one way similar – they all had water, land, air, green things, life – each place was so vastly different. They all just happened to be in the same place at the same time waiting for the same tube train. I can’t think of anything stranger or more alien than that.

These tube trains! With a great whoosh a train came rocking into the station; the spaceships arrive on two rails in these parts. The waiting hoards began to get off and on. Each customer knew where they needed to be, what to do, where to get off. Except me. I hadn’t realized it until then, but I had been so caught up in being amid London’s crabbiest that I hadn’t even figured out the system. I looked around, remembering that I had never been on a train, let alone a subway car. I saw the posters and signs splattered around the tube tunnel. I took in the colors and linguistics of an Underground advertisement, thinking it was silly to advertise for something you had already paid for. I considered the Millennium Dome, a large dome that had opened much earlier in the year, as I passed a flyer telling me to “Come visit! And don’t forget to bring lots of money to spend on pewter figures and stuffed beanie animals!”

Finally, after what seemed like a ten minute trial, the crowds thinned enough to plow through. My suitcase, a fine specimen designed by Marlboro, subtly adorned with a square-foot logo and given away free to those who had smoked 700 packs of cigarettes, lumbered along behind me as I struggled to lift it into the tube car.

While the throngs of people outside had fought their way in, I considered the fact that I would have to stand for a few miles. Once I walked inside, however, I noticed something peculiar: all of those people that had shoved their way to the front of the group had disappeared. The cars are much bigger than expected. Being from a small South Dakota “city,” I had imagined everyone jumping onto a city bus, smashing and shoving the person ahead of them in an effort to gain a spot. Faces would contort against the windows as the bus driver casually waved three more people on.

This was not the case.

First of all, I was not in Sioux Falls. The public transportation was going to accommodate more than 17 people at a time.

Second of all, I was being completely blind to the enormity of a subway train. While watching the entire train pull into the stop earlier, I had foolishly assumed that the only cars were those in front of me. My mind somehow forgot the ones that had just passed. Of course, later I realized there were a lot of trains. And a lot of people.

And a lot of room.

I sat down near the back and looked up at the train map for the Piccadilly Line. Similar to the larger Underground maps (except, obviously, singular in its focus) these smaller versions outlined the line a traveler was currently on. Each stop and crossing line is illustrated with the simplicity of the full map. They are awesome.

The train lurched forward and a gentle voice called out to me. Oh yes – the tube speaks. It reminds everyone to keep their hands away from the closing doors. It tells every captive traveler what the next stop is. It goads us into minding the gap. I want to meet the woman who recorded the “voice of the tube.” I want her to say “mind the gap” and “Marble Arch” over and over again until I fall fast asleep dreaming of the third rail and the rats (of which I only saw a few, I’ll have you know.)

Honslow Station. My “lots of room” became “a little bit of room.”

Everyone I was sitting next to had headphones on or a newspaper; sometimes both. All I had was this suitcase and a backpack. After crossing numerous time zones (and sleeping through none of them) I had arrived in London 14 hours later than I had left. Doing the math, I noticed that it was 9:30 in the morning.

Damn. Morning rush.

Acton Town Station. My little bit of room became no room at all.

Everyone I was sitting next to, I had now noticed with full awareness, was listening to the new Eminem album. I knew this because everyone I sat next to was carefully touching thighs with me. My suitcase and backpack were now sitting in front of me. I was suddenly very embarrassed about that Marlboro logo.

Hammersmith Station. People were standing now.

I felt guilty for taking up so much space. I contented myself with gazing out the window. Trees and houses whizzed by as the commuters stood unaware. It was great. I was seeing blurred versions of the backyards I had only seen on television. Little window sill gardens and eight-foot square lawns sped by. I had never wanted so little of a place until I saw these cracker box houses, all of which saw on lanes probably named after former lords and mayors. Drudyhill, or Kingfisher, or Springfulbonnet lane. I wanted to stand up and ask everyone “Why aren’t you watching this wonderful display of Englishness?”

But then I would have lost my spot. And I would have broken the eerie silence that had taken over the train car.

No one uttered a word. Faces stared straight ahead, some staring at the Guardian, some staring at the Sun, most staring at their knees. The only sound was the muffled voice of Marshal Mathers emanating from the headphones of the young adults.

Earls Court Station. People started to get off.

I looked around. I was in London. I saw the obligatory double-decker bus, once to cliché to me but now as inviting as a warm bath.

And, of course, as fate would have it, this was the station I needed to switch trains on.

I crawled out from the car and looked around. I took my first breaths of true English air. It smelled like diesel and commerce.

I had never felt so at home in my life.

A wee lil' tube.

Tags: From the Moleskin, Travel |

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On England

August 5, 2005


Why am I such a hopeless anglophile?

I wrote about it “back in the day.”

———————-

I think it’s due to the brevity of the occasion – ten days in Europe: six in England and four in France. I also think it’s due to the circumstances – ten days with Kerrie, July 7th to July 17th; a birthday present and long awaited visit. Both of these made me stand in awe at most that I experienced. The reasons behind the stick – the holding fast of “ye ol’ Anglia” still confuse me. Why England? Why not India or Prussia or Eastern Texas? Why not something close to the Queen Bee Mill?

I know the fascination started early. My mother was a closet “anglophile,” drawn to the more British things on the television dial. It stems, I feel, from the accessibility of British culture, the familiarity and differences combined. A person can grasp the culture so easily because of its close parallels to an American one. Similar language, similar foods, and similar – nearly identical – ancestry put less fear into the English culture. There’s little to learn and nothing unfamiliar to jar Americans in their all-too-consistent worlds.

So, for some oddly exotic reason, British media is shown in the U.S. as a higher-brow form of entertainment. Therefore, as I was bred on English mystery programs and raised on late 70’s English rock, the vision of the U.K. as intellectual capital (and the “place to be”) grew.

Later, as I reached high school level, I began to latch on (after my punk phase and before my emo phase) to 60’s-70’s rock – late era Beatles, Pink Floyd, the Who – and also discovered the high-brow yet low and subtle humor of Monty Python. These shows formed the visual background to my thoughts of London: village-like and cozy, reserved and quirky. My love of England sprouted primarily from the humor of the island. Through this humor (and one movie in particular) the love turned into a past time.

Tags: From the Moleskin, Travel, Writing |

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Sioux Falls — destination?

August 3, 2005


This is something I threw together about Sioux Falls when I was in a particularly horrible mood, but it’s pretty close to the point. I love this city, but sometimes it doesn’t seem to have much to offer.

Initially it was meant as an intro to a small travel section on everyday Sioux Falls sites, part tongue in cheek and part real review. Now that I’ve pulled this out of the archives, I might just start doing that.

My first stop, of course, would be the Hamburger Inn.

——————

It’s kind of a weird black hole. Sioux Falls, that is – a city that doubles as a center of quicksand. It seems to be culturally sterile, like a mule in the middle of the great plains. It’s a strange mixture of both city and town with an impotent result. It’s devoid of personality.

No, that’s not right. It’s just trying to make sense of a personality that seems to be patch worked together; a mess of identities. It’s small town sensibilities vs. big city growth and prosperity. It’s an amalgamation of low-rise business buildings and wide streets, trees on every boulevard and creeping suburbs.

Because of this, our fair city has all but disappeared from the usual annals of travel literature. It’s true! I challenge you to open a Fodor’s or Let’s Go! Guidebook (not counting the impossible to find Fodor’s South Dakota) and find a mention of the state, let alone the city of Sioux Falls. We’ve been lost, cast adrift between Minneapolis and Denver. Sure, we may get the second-from-largest dot on a Rand McNally atlas – in fact our hamlet is featured with it’s own corner map, although so is Aberdeen, so take that for what it’s worth – but what does it mean in the “grand scheme” when Wall Drug features more in the state tourist bureau’s plans than its largest city?

Truly we deserve more respect. We were the #1 city in the country once! I mean… really! It’s beside the point that we received zero points (out of 100, for those who are counting) in the entertainment portion of the surveys, although I think we lucked out – the surveyors probably wanted to give us negative points for listing “the loop” as a top ten hangout on the questionnaire.

We cling to that ranking like any underachieving small-to-mid-size-city should. For one solitary year, we beat Rochester, MN. Mayo be dammed! We’ve got two hospitals! Ha!

It’s this aspect, the pride in our city as a beacon of employment and chasm of entertainment, which makes Sioux Falls so humdrum. Where can an inspiring travel journalist go to experience new things in a town so distant from everything but itself?

Ultimately, I’m a traveler with out travel, in search of tourist stops with no tourists.

Tags: From the Moleskin, Sioux Falls, Travel |

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Substitute writing

June 8, 2005


I was just thumbing through the ol’ Moleskin notebook and found this. I thought I’d throw it on here – substitute teaching always sucked, and this is something I wrote at school one day. It’s very “woe is me,” but when has that been anything different from anything else I’ve posted.

I’ll do this more and more frequently as I find decent stuff I have written in the past. It’s under a new category and everything.

———————————-

Why should they bother to even begin to listen?

They already know by this time that I, their substitute, is here to watch them, to make sure nobody dies, catches on fire, or eats in the room. All they need is a babysitter. So I sit, trapped behind a desk, holding on for my own sanity – rushed by the noise of 25 teenagers vying for the top spot of the person who breaks the visitor. Given an assignment that could no way fill a 50 minute period, the students slowly raise and turn into a mob of chattering pigeons, bubbling in their seats and gradually filling the room with an uneasy chaos.

Still, I can’t do much of anything, too fearful of that line between tyrant and teacher. Too spineless to stop what, in all actuality, is non-harmful talking, realizing that they would otherwise be sitting quietly — but would be just as unproductive — if I was to lay the law down, breaking out a ruler and smashing knuckles.

The question raises itself: how do I build respect? Why bother? They already stare at me with contempt when I stand in front of the room. They have already placed themselves into a free-for-all mode when they saw me at the desk. I find myself too thin-skinned, struggling to hold control, knowing there is no sense in trying to get any teaching across when all resources have been used getting them in their seats, opening their books, and shutting their mouths.

It has been this way since my first solitary teaching experience. With no one else to back me up, I have floundered, left to exact discipline on students who won’t listen in the first place. I give up to easily, counting the minutes until the next period, or until lunch, or until I can go home.

Tags: Career, From the Moleskin, Writing |

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