Exercise? No thank you.

Working out is hard.
 

Just thinking about exercising is a struggle most of the time. All the mental energy that goes into picturing me going for a run or lifting weights is enough to make my stomach curl into the most uncomfortable of knots.

I used to be a “workout person.” In elementary school – and especially in high school – I was always active. Whether it was lifting weights or training on my own for an upcoming sports season, you couldn’t pay me to sit down as long as I could get up and run. I wouldn’t even get a job in the summer. I’d sign up for three or four different leagues spanning multiple sports, and I’d have an exercise-related commitment nearly every single day. A couple of hours of exercise a day equates to a full time job, right?

Then college hit. Does anybody else remember those self-pledges not to gain the freshman fifteen? What about all those New Years’ Resolutions to “get back in the swing of things” for beach season? And freshman year that was with residual motivation carrying over from high school. The deeper and deeper I trudged into the bowels of collegiate life, the further and further away from the bright light of exercise I slogged. Sure, I’d go for a swim every now and again. Hell, I might even do some pushups in my dorm room before rounding out my workout with a hearty bag of Cooler Ranch Doritos. But who was I kidding? I knew I’d peaked. My exercise trajectory slipped from working out every day, to working out a couple days a week, to – before I knew it – telling myself that taking the stairs and walking places burned plenty of calories. Now I get a little winded going up a flight of stairs. My high school self would be so proud.

Working out is hard. It’s a drag. It’s a mental and physical drain. But there are some good things about it, I must grudgingly admit. Like how, after you do it a couple times, you feel this freshness about you for the rest of the day, like you’ve done something worth doing, something to better yourself that makes you feel good. Or how it can relieve stress and help you live longer. Those two aren’t bad. I’d like a little less stress and a little more life in my life, I suppose. The best is that it curbs – and yes, possibly even prevents – depression. No one wants to be sad all the time. So the next time you think about how hard working out is, think about just how much better you could be feeling. I started working out again the summer going into my last semester of college, and I haven’t looked back. Who knows what it could do for you? Sure, this won’t make your physical workout any easier, but it might remove a few of those mental chains that are holding you back. And that’s a start.

Boston: Making Its Mark

 

Boston’s eponymous debut album deserves its place as one of the great albums of rock and roll’s rich history. Guitarist/keyboardist/producer Tom Scholz’s painstaking efforts filled this album with complex, layered harmonies as well as crushing guitar solos and lyrics that both depress and uplift. His efforts paid off in 1976 when the album debuted, breaking the record for the highest number of copies sold of all time. This was undoubtedly very validating to Scholz, who had been turned down by numerous record labels that did not appreciate his distinct musical style prior to his deal with Epic Records. All he needed was one chance, however, and Epic Records was willing to give him that shot.

Scholz was something of a perfectionist – or he was, at least, a man who knew what kind of sound he wanted. He preferred to work out of his basement studio instead of Epic’s recording studio, due to the fact that he owned equipment he had made himself that the record company did not have. These homemade devices were able to produce a sound that became known distinctly as Boston’s sound, a sound of a unique timbre in both the guitar and keyboard. 

            Boston starts off with “More Than a Feeling,” a plaintive number about a young man and his lost love. The man feels like his whole world is lost, waking up to a world where “the sun [is] gone,” where all he can think of is the girl who “slipped away.” The song has the classic Boston guitar riffs that half-rock half-whine, cutting through the verses with their mournful blaring. The song ends without any redemption, with the speaker still lonely and forlorn. The instrumentation cuts to the core of the listeners, making them feel all that the speaker does.

            The next two tracks – “Peace of Mind” and “Foreplay/Long Time” – are much more positive in nature. “Peace of Mind” follows the typical song form, with verse/chorus/verse. As is typical with many pop songs of the day – but most especially with Boston songs – there is a long musical interlude in the middle where the guitar gets to stretch its legs, giving rock and roll fans something to talk about with Scholz’s freewheeling riffs. The next song, “Foreplay/Long Time,” again illustrates Scholz’s dexterity when wielding a guitar. It is easy to hear the organized chaos, the meticulousness of the composition while at the same time hearing the unrestrained and wild nature of the piece. The chaos subsides and is followed by another well-written song with a hard snare drum in duple meter. “Long Time,” which completes the first side of the record, is far more positive, with the speaker saying that he is “just moving on,” leaving the listener eager to see what comes next.

            The second half of the album appeals directly to the rebellious teen culture that defined rock and roll. With most of the tracks in the standard song form, they speak precisely to the teen audience. They are about rebellion, escapism, and – most importantly – rock and roll, and with lyrics like “just keep on tokin’” in “Smokin’” and “[g]onna…[l]eave it all behind,” in “Hitch a Ride,” Boston makes one thing abundantly clear: this kind of music is not for adults. The last song, “Let Me Take You Home Tonight,” when compared with the first half of the album, shows a noteworthy change in the tone of the album. The speaker is now self-assured and even bold, asking a young woman to come home with him at the end of the night. It is a far cry from the man wallowing in despair in “More Than a Feeling,” leaving off on a note of hope and promise for the future.

            Boston has earned its place in the annals of the rock and roll greats. The album manages to tell something of a story without giving a direct narrative, while simultaneously appealing to wide masses of rock and roll fans. It draws the listener in to its depth while still managing to deliver a performance worthy of rock and roll. Tom Scholz’s genius in creating that futuristic, almost alien-like Boston sound with his homemade equipment is nothing short of incredible. With this album he was able to give the rock and roll community a sound that it had not quite heard before, a sound and form that would be imitated for years to come. With their debut album, Boston was able to make their mark on the history of rock and roll.

X-MEN – The Octopquel?

Ever since Batman Begins successfully reestablished the reign of the super hero, big time movie franchises have been shamelessly cashing in on their star characters. But who can blame them? Sequels, and trequels, and quadruquels are making millions at the Box Office without even rolling out of bed. And each sequel seems to be making more and more money. Take Iron Man, for instance. The first Iron Man film launched in 2008 grossed $318,412,101, a respectable amount of money for a burgeoning, narcissistic hero in what seems to be a colorful, iron Apple product. By the time the series got to Iron Man 3, however, it grossed $409,013,994. So where’s the incentive to stop?

These aren’t like the sequels of the past, where something like the specter of Jaws is resurrected to torment a new generation in a cheap movie trick that brought back to life the monster that made us fear all kinds bodies of water. Jaws was clearly killed in the first movie, restoring order to this human world we live in; I’m not sure if producers were trying to convince us of the existence of multiple giant sharks, or if they were resurrecting the old terror time and time again. Either way, they should have let the Jaws franchise alone. How could anything ever come close to outdoing the scene where Brody shoots the oxygen tank, blowing apart the horrifying creature of the deep? It was just short of insult to create each sequential Jaws movie, and it seemed like an obvious ploy to make more money.

Another clear money grabbing scheme is the idea of making a movie just to make a sequel. This is seen in everything from the Pirates of the Caribbean to the latest Bourne Legacy starring not Matt Damon. Aside from Pirates 1, these movies were made merely to set up a second or a third movie, giving you just enough detail that you’re somewhat confused and you feel that the only way to unmuddle your brain is to wait for the next movie to come out. When the sequel’s subplot is too much the part of the first sequel’s, you wonder what you paid your money for. You came to see a conflict resolved, and all you got was violence or action or more conflict. Is that worth the price of a ticket?

Great franchises, however, don’t play these money-making games – at least not overtly. Of course their main goal is to make money, but the entertainment value is not compromised. When it is, when the overarching plot is too forced and the subtlety disappears, the movie as a whole suffers. Take Iron Man 2, for example. The whole movie is peppered with the “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” plot that doesn’t just flirt with the main plotline; it stomps all over it. While novel at first, the heavy-handed hints at the Avengers gets old as the moviegoer is unable to decide which plot to settle on; Venko, or S.H.I.E.L.D.?

For a while, X-Men to me seemed like it was merely in the business of making money, producing movie after movie. However, upon seeing both X-Men Origins and The Wolverine, I have come to realize that there is still great entertainment value in each one. Feeling the thrill that accompanies seeing Hugh Jackman kick some ass again and again makes me wonder if maybe I’m missing the point with these sequels. Maybe it’s not the complexity and subtlety of the plot, the nuances and the ways in which the audience interacts with a cohesive, self-contained storyline, that make it what it is. Maybe all I need to do is sit back, shut off, and watch.

Shootin' Hoops
 

It would start with my father taking a shot, his arm extending skyward as his hand snapped to, waving to the ball as it whooshed through the sticky air on its way to the basket. The smile across his face said that he was made for no other purpose than to shoot that ball. It would bounce with a good-natured laugh off the tight rim, but Dad didn’t care. He would bound after the rogue ball, his body easing itself into the rhythmic flow of the game as though he were twenty-four instead of forty-two. 

Or maybe it would start with me stepping up to the foul line. One dribble, two dribbles, a deep breath, and a perfect shot, a shot that was flawless until the moment it loudly hit the rim in a way that hurt my pride more than my ears. My father would pluck the ball out of the air and pass it back to me, the silent “try again, and again, and again” apparent on his face. I might take fifty shots from that foul line before, frustrated, I would take a break and let my father take his turn.

But it actually would start with me searching the garage for a pump, raiding the drawers and buckets for the needle that would squeeze life into the rustic brown basketball. I would feel the rough contours of the ball in my hands, the dirt of bygone practices rubbing off on my dry palms. My father would meet me out front, walking across the lawn in the sweat of an August day, the white paint splotches on his black gym shorts like distant moons surrounded by thousands of tiny stars. He might have spent the day painting the kitchen just to make my mother happy, or he might have started a new project in the backyard, laying bricks on which to rest the fire pit we sometimes sat around, talking until we ran out of wood to burn. The best part about him was that if Dad went to bed exhausted on Thursday night – the three hour commute he traveled every day visible in his eyes – by Friday night he would be cracking the jokes and telling the stories that could make me laugh until my stomach hurt. Even though he had woken up at four forty five every morning of the previous week, he would still stay up late with me to watch the old Batman movies that bridged the gap between our generations. Even though I was the young one, the one who was supposed to have all the energy, Dad would still get up before me on Saturday and spend the morning raking leaves out from under the tree house we built together or picking up a box of doughnuts for his sleeping children. That afternoon, he would rescue me from my tiresome world of impossible homework – a world of fractions and worksheets and grammar exercises – and take me down to “our” court with the sole purpose of helping me improve my game. Or maybe it was more about the company.

I would bounce the ball on the coarse sidewalk and it would loyally bounce back into my ready hands, resilient and predictable, each dribble pronounced by an earnest thwang. We would walk in silence to the schoolyard down the road, jokes cutting through the heat, laughter punctuating the gunshot of every dribble. We would reach the court, the just-setting sun shining straight into our eyes. The three-point line wasn’t painted in; rather, it was a crack in the pavement, arced around the hoop as though someone had diligently taken a hammer and chisel to it, driven by a desire to hit a deep jumper and be justly rewarded for his or her efforts. Grass poked up through the ancient asphalt, the lonely iron rim lacked a net, and the backboard was smattered with rust, all of which merely reminded us that this court was our own, that we would not be interrupted as we battled our way to miniscule greatness. I would take a shot, eagerly listening to my father tell me of how he used to practice when he was a child, telling of the fences hopped and the rules broken, all so that he could experience the pleasant loneliness of a boy with his basketball.

My first shot would bounce off the backboard, the second might miss the hoop altogether. I would start to show signs of anger, but Dad would quietly critique my shot. “Follow through straight,” or “Bend your knees a little bit more.” It was always some minor adjustment that would make the difference, and there was no problem that Dad couldn’t fix. I learned to follow his example, seeing how he laughed if he took a particularly awful shot, seeing how he hustled after every single rebound. “See? This game’s easy.” Looking back, I’m not so sure he was talking about basketball.

            Sooner than soon, the sun would squat behind the houses, the sweat would slide down our faces, and my father and I would make our way back home, walking in a silence that said more than words ever could. I would toss the ball back in the garage, and it would bounce off the baseball gloves and the lacrosse sticks and the soccer balls and the football cleats before settling next to the bicycle my father taught me to ride.