Don’t Be This Guy: Todd Henderson

There are certain things you just don’t do.  You don’t yell fire in a crowded theater, you don’t take candy from a baby, and you certainly don’t complain about not having enough money when you’re super rich, the economy is in the tank, and poverty levels are the highest they’ve been in fifty years.  Todd Henderson did the last thing, and I have no confirmation on whether he did the first two.

Who is Todd Henderson?  He’s a University of Chicago law professor who blogged about his plight a couple weeks ago.  In summary, he complained that making more the $250,000 made it really hard on him and his family.  If the Bush tax cuts were allowed to expire and he were forced to pay an extra 3% in taxes, then he would find it really hard to keep his kids in private school, live in (what I would assume is) his nice house in a pricey neighborhood, and keep his Mexican groundskeeper and Polish housecleaner employed.

Then someone with half a shred of decency and perspective sat him down and gave him a good talking-to, and Mr. Henderson took down the blog post, apologized for his stupidity, and quit blogging altogether (as if that were the problem).  Despite that, his post was saved on the Internet anyway for all the world to see.  Thank you, series of tubes.

Surely, as the great sage The Notorious B.I.G. once said, with greater amounts of money in one’s bank account, the greater the perils will follow.  But as the great comedian Lewis Black said, when you're rich and pay big taxes, you’re still fucking rich.  So it was no surprise Mr. Henderson was on the receiving end of a deluge of negative reaction for whining about not having more money when he was already making six figures.  He even got a whole Wall Street Journal article devoted to him because, honestly, if you can’t find a way to live off of $250,000 a year, then you’re doing it wrong.

As someone who hasn’t even sniffed $30,000 in my best year, who was laid off due to my lack of seniority within my department in 2008, who has been working temp jobs ever since because I can’t find a decent job that doesn’t involve being a Mexican groundskeeper or Polish housecleaner, there are many, many things I’d like to say to Mr. Henderson.  Many, many things that would make even Lewis Black blush.  But Mr. Henderson has received plenty of flame emails to cover that ground, and his apology did seem to indicate that he understands how incredibly awful he was.

So no, I have nothing much to say to Mr. Henderson that hasn’t already been said already.  Instead, this is to anyone else who may be reading this.  If you’re in the upper tax bracket, do not complain about not having more money.  If, in the future, you somehow find yourself in the upper tax bracket by random luck or by marrying a Montgomery Burns, do not complain about not having more money.  And, please please please, if I ever find myself in the upper tax bracket, please please please slap me alongside the head if I complain about not having more money.  I will have deserved it.

Underworld - Barking

Without question my favorite musical act of all time is Underworld.  They would have to commit genocide or cover a Britney Spears song for me to stop liking them (well, I’d probably find some way to rationalize one of those—I’m not going to say which).  Dubnobasswithmyheadman and Second Toughest in the Infants are always good for a couple dozen plays on my iPod every year, and despite being over 15 years old, they still sound fresh.  I found the Dirty Forums sometime in the early ‘00s when I started to dig deep into their work, and I became friends with hundreds of fans across the world, even developing some actual friendships.  The first time I saw them perform live in Denver ’07 was like a religious experience for this very non-religious person.  My many late nights of staying up listening, adoring, reveling in their music had honed my ears to recognize each song from that concert within a few notes.  When I was able to, I’d catch their online radio broadcasts that catered to us hardcore fans, and I turned into a giddy schoolgirl when Karl Hyde read my questions in that amazing speaking voice of his.  And I even isolated those questions of mine he spoke into individual mp3 files that I still have.

Yes, I am a total geek or nerd or whatever-you-want-to-call-me when it comes to Underworld.  I can’t help it, really.  I remember first hearing “Cowgirl” over (…holy crap…) ten years ago and being blown away by it.  Up until that point, I had never heard a song like this, the typical four-minute pop song format blown apart for something completely different and original.  There wasn’t a structure, at least not one I recognized, but my patience in listening to the eight minute song paid off, and I was hooked.  I am always excited to hear new Underworld music, seeking it out from whatever obscure British radio program had played those glorious new sounds.

Until now.  After a few listens through Underworld’s new album Barking, I am simply lost for words.  The conceit was that each track would be a collaboration with another artist, that Karl and Rick Smith would work on a song and have another artist tweak it in some way.  And I don’t know quite what to make of this.  Some tracks like “Bird 1” and “Always Loved A Film” work pretty well, but the rest just lose me.  There doesn’t seem to be any structural framework to this album.  Unlike Second Toughest in the Infants, there’s no cohesion.  I could listen to one track at a time and feel satisfied (to an extent, assuming the song is any good), but going from start to finish feels disjointed.

But the biggest problem here is nowadays I don’t know what Underworld sounds like.  Yes, I know collaborating with nine different artists is going to produce nine different sounds, but each song has a common denominator:  Rick and Karl.  Especially on Barking, they sound like they’re trying to imitate other artists.  I feel like I’m listening to other artists albums where Karl is singing as a guest.  I felt the same way with their previous album Oblivion With Bells but to a lesser extent (as they didn’t collaborate with someone on every song).  That album still sounded like Underworld at times (i.e. “Beautiful Burnout” and “Best Mamgu Ever”), but the rest felt like their half-baked attempts at experimentation.

This is not to say Underworld can’t experiment with new sounds and try something else—far from it.  That’s one of the reasons I gravitated towards them.  They weren’t like anyone else I had ever heard before, and to this day, Pandora has a tough time finding songs that sound like them.  Their early work is still some of the most inspired, layered, and amazing music I have ever heard or will ever hear.  Karl’s stream of consciousness lyrics turned his voice into another instrument, and despite their seeming randomness, those words evoked strong emotions that require deeper exploration into their meaning.  From 1992 to 1996, they weren’t just on top of their game, they were ahead of everyone else’s game by at least ten light-years.

So what has changed since then?  Well, they’ve obviously gotten older.  They’re in their 50s and have turned into elder statesmen of electronic music.  Karl overcame his battle with alcoholism, which may or may not have something to do with it.  I don’t want to ascribe too much to this point since I think it’s a cliché, and I don’t buy into the drugs-produce-great-art theory.  But the elephant in the room is that Darren Emerson left after Beaucoup Fish.  Unfortunately, I’m beginning to come around to this theory.

But there’s a few things that I still don’t know about this last one.  First off, Beaucoup Fish was a pretty good album, but a steep drop off from Second Toughest in the Infants.  Sure, it produced gems like “Cups,” “Push Upstairs,” and “Jumbo,” but the middle of the album isn’t as prolific or put together as the bookends.  And as such I don’t find myself listening to Beaucoup Fish all that often.  Second, A Hundred Days Off, the first album post-Emerson, was not a big of a thud as everyone thinks.  It follows pretty much the same pattern as its predecessor; “Mo Move” and “Two Months Off” are amazing, and “Luetin” is phenomenal.  Sure, it was more subdued, but it still sounded like Underworld.

Even if you disagree with that entire paragraph, there’s still the matter of “Pizza For Eggs.”  This “single” (I don’t know what to call it) was 25 minutes of pure genius, on par with their early 90s work.  It was everything Underworld was back then but new and amazing.  For a brief time, it felt like they had returned to what made them great.  Until Oblivion With Bells that is.

So where does this leave me?  They are still my favorite musical artist.  They’ve moved me and inspired me too much to remove themselves from that spot.  Simply, I have too many good memories to outweigh these past few years.  It’s like how I feel watching new episodes of The Simpsons; the show was so phenomenal for so many years, I can’t help but think good thoughts about it despite what it’s turned into now.  And honestly, that’s not a bad position for them to be in.