High Expectations
Some things are great, some things suck, but some things should be great and end up sucking hard, which is perhaps the greatest crime of all. Here is a short list:
1. Love Monkey - This is the name of the unfortunately-titled CBS dramedy which was cancelled after three aired episodes. I was pretty stoked about this, given the following info: Starring Tom Cavanagh (from "Ed"), about a indie record company executive who has crazy adventures with women, though his obviously true love is one of his close friends. Going in, I imagined this as a sort of "High Fidelity" as a running series, which would be fucking awesome. At the very least, I figured the record company setting would provide references to Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and Madvillain that would distract me from any plot mistakes, plus T.C. is undeniably likable. But, WOW, what a fucking mess. Any possible hipster music references were replaced with jarring errors ("Hey, this two-disc 'Essential Bob Dylan' contains every song he ever recorded") and the fact that we are supposed to buy guest-star (and John mutherfucking Mayer wannabe Teddy Geiger (as 'Wayne') as the next big musical thing. It seems like a bunch of square 40 year olds were attempting to be as cool as possible. To make a long story short, watching the first three episodes made me blush with embarrassment. In fact, this show inspired this entire blog post, and the term 'love monkey' is now being used as an adjective to describe something that has greatly failed expectations.
2. The Raconteurs - Another total love monkey is the collaboration between Jack White, Brendan Benson, and the rhythm section from the Greenhornes, which should have been the greatest band ever. Their first album doesn't come out until next month, but I've heard it a few times, and while there are a few good moments (haven't ruled it out for best of 2K6 yet), it certainly isn't anything worth writing home about. Perhaps if I was a bit older I would have remembered the Traveling Wilburys.
3. R.E.M.'s Up - In 1997, my favorite band lost their drummer to retirement, which is always a bad sign, but expectations didn't wane. A year later, they came out with their 11th album, which I listened to religiously and convinced myself it was great. It was only after seeing the tour that I realized it was mostly bad, and the declination in musical quality caused a re-evaluation of my entire spiritual belief system, and upped the presence of my fear of aging.
