New Music: A Song For America

 

Maybe the best song I've ever written? It pretty much sums up all of my feelings about this country at this very moment. I wear my best Dylan hat, with perhaps a bit of Elliott Smith's aesthetics, whatever the fuck that means. Considering that I wrote it in about fifteen minutes, I'm pretty proud of A Song For America. 

Lyrics below:

Well the blowjob queen of Texas

And the podcast king of dirt

Ran off from the Valley

Forget all the lives they hurt

They were trying to find the heart

so they could stab it through the chest

Leaving little pieces so we could do the rest

I had twenty whole dollars and a bucket full of chum

I had to feed the sharks but I needed a bigger gun

I was shooting in the movies, I was shooting in the breeze

I was shooting anything that moves, anything that needs

Pour another shot of whiskey into a cold glass

Throw it over your shoulder as you drink into the past

You can drink and drive but you can’t bring back a soul

That you threw off and away

He was in the Oval office

he was in your neighbor Bob

He was in the cryptodollar

That you stole from the Mob

The grift, the lie, the cheat

You can’t hide it all away

We will have to pay up in some dark loathsome way

There are fewer and fewer children

But more and more of the old

The future’s warming up

While the history is sold

You can stare into your phone

You can stare into the abyss

But nothing’s looking back, nothing you can kiss

Pour another shot of whiskey into a cold glass

Throw it over your shoulder as you drink into the past

You can drink and drive but you can’t bring back a soul

That you threw off and away

The sickness it starts spreading

When you’re almost middle-aged

You see that time will not forget

Your father or your name

The places you have known

Are dungeons full of fog

The people you remember

Are shadows stretched too long

The eyes of a child are the windows to a hole

You can fill up a person with consumer graded hope

There is more to life than money

There is more to life than fame

There is more to life than dopamine drip fed into our veins

Pour another shot of whiskey into a cold glass

Throw it over your shoulder as you drink into the past

You can drink and drive but you can’t bring back a soul

That you threw off and away

Video Game Review: Tomb Raider 1-3 Remastered

 

Tomb Raider Remastered is a gorgeous game.

It's somewhere between 1996 and 1997, and I'm wandering a pitch-black coliseum, trying to figure out where to go next. The sense of isolation is palatable; here there is only the darkness, man-eating lions, and crumbling ruins. Can I make that jump? Are there spikes at the bottom of the pit? Does this switch release homicidal gorillas along with opening a door? These are the choice of the OG Tomb Raider, a game that I was not prepared to beat back in my preteen days, with a probable ADHD brain. Technical troubles also marred the experience--I remember a looping sound bug, along with a crash after fighting one of the end-game bosses in Atlantis. Early PC gaming was pretty fickle when it came to operating systems and sound drivers. Having just replayed about 75 percent of Tomb Raider Remastered, and having dabbled a bit with Tomb Raider 2, I have to report that these games are just delightful and have aged like fine wine. The first three Core Design Tomb Raider games were 3D grid-based platformers with tank controls. Puzzles formed a large part of the gameplay, and some of that puzzling was figuring out the level design. The shooting mechanics were not complex, and were frankly the least-interesting element of play. Taking your time to line Lara up, measuring the distance out in squares, and then taking that ridiculous leap (seriously, Lara has like a world record long jump as well as vertical) forms the essence of Tomb Raider. Well, that and battling the controls.

Tomb Raider Remastered sports remastered graphics along with support for modern over the shoulder third person controls. The tank controls feel terrible for about the first thirty minutes, but after that you quickly adjust and you realize that they are really the only option, since the game was designed around them. It's just so much easier to line up those jumps, and the camera, your constant enemy, is sometimes even worse with the modern scheme. Every one of Lara's movements has to be considered, which isn't something normal in modern games, but it gets you thinking about how novel moving around in a 3D space was in 1996. Exploration was part of the pitch, but unlike Dark Forces Remastered, Tomb Raider has much better level design. In fact, I'd say I've had as much fun exploring Peru, Greece, and Egypt as I've had in any other game in recent memory. There's no objective arrow, or even a checklist telling you what to do. Now I'm not saying that I didn't miss a switch or get lost in Greece's infamous Cistern level. But the sprawling labyrinths fit the setting, and a key hunt (especially when the key is the Eye of Horus or some other artifact) just makes more sense in Tomb Raider as opposed to your 90's shooter.

However, despite loving this collection, I don't know if I'd recommend it to your average gamer. Tomb Raider is pretty fucking hard, and TR2 and TR3 are even harder, to the point where I might consider them to be some of the hardest games of their generation. The first game ramps up the difficulty pretty gradually, with the Peruvian levels being pretty straight forward, and the Greek ones just a bit harder. Still, you'll likely consult a walkthrough if you've never played these games (I actually have the official Prima Strategy guide from back in the day, and I consulted it for secrets). For the more intrepid among us, I really recommend checking these games out. They're really like nothing around today, and they're an incredible amount of fun.

Still in pretty good condition, unlike my Tomb Raider 3 guide.

Albums That Made Me: Heart On

 

I saw the Eagles of Death Metal in the Madison Theater in Cincinnati sometime around 2008. I was with my girlfriend, who is now my wife, and singer Jesse Hughes had a sore throat, but by damn, they put on a good, incredibly loud show. Heart On is filled with riff-heavy, 70's influenced boogie rock. Songs like "Anything But The Truth" and "Wannabe In L.A." have a Stonesy groove to them, while "(I Used To Couldn't Dance) Tight Pants" and "Prissy Prancing" remind me of ZZ Top. Even the one moment of sincerity "Now I'm A Fool" feels like Hughes is keeping his tongue firmly in cheek. This is a fun, danceable album, and it's a shame that it's sort of forgotten, at least, as far as I can tell. It was constantly in my iPod playlist circa 2008-2009, and having given it several relistens recently, it's damn near perfect. Bring back rock 'n' roll, people! Listen to Heart On and discover its many virtues.