Why I hate Paul Simon, or, a dissection of "50 Ways To Leave Your Lover"

I actually wrote this a long time ago on my last.fm blog, but I thought I'd share it with anyone who is interested. In retrospect I should note that "50 Ways To Leave Your Lover" is, honestly, way too easy of a target, and I hope in the future to attack other stuff of Paul Simon's with similar gusto, in order to prove that this man is a lyrical meathead. Anyhow, enjoy.
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I don't like Paul Simon. I don't dig his uninspired compositions, I don't like how polished and sleepy they sound, I don't like his voice. I didn't like Simon & Garfunkel, I don't like "Graceland," I'm just not that into him. Now I know it is not my right to bitch about other people listening to him, but I think I can make a good argument for why he sucks.

I will use the famous song "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover" as an example of Simon at his most self-consciously empty-headed. Plenty of people talk about how much of a lyrical genius Paul Simon is, but I don't see it. I think people confuse "lyrical genius" with "occasional use of 4-syllable words." Let's take a look at the opening lyric:

"The problem is all inside your head," she said to me
The answer is easy if you take it logically
I'd like to help you in your struggle to be free
There must be fifty ways to leave your lover

What problem, you ask? We get the fact that this is about some couple having difficulties in their relationship, but we can't really understand what exactly is going on? Is the guy too needy? Is the girl too needy? Is the guy not needy enough? Is this a lesbian relationship? Will he explain himself, or just continue to be vague? Let's continue:

She said it's really not my habit to intrude
Furthermore, I hope my meaning won't be lost or misconstrued
But I'll repeat myself at the risk of being crude
There must be fifty ways to leave your lover
Fifty ways to leave your lover.

You may notice that each succeeding sentence has absolutely nothing to do with the previous one. What the hell is this lady intruding on, and what does it have to do with her meaning being lost or misconstrued? Don't try to tell me this is anything other than incredibly, clunky, uninspired wordplay. Only the biggest idiot in the world would be impressed by him using the word "misconstrued," especially when he happens to rhyme it with "crude," any moron could have come up with that. But in my opinion it gets worse. This chorus is relatively well-known, and it surprises me that actual adults find it either funny or thought-provoking, as this is clearly the sort of thing you would sing in preschool:

Just slip out the back, Jack
Make a new plan, Stan
You don't need to be coy, Roy
Just get yourself free
Hop on the bus, Gus
You don't need to discuss much
Just drop off the key, Lee
And get yourself free.

Songwriter rule #1: You can't just cheat out of finding a good rhyme by adding some random person's name at the end of it. I defy anyone to defend this abysmal attempt at rhyming on any grounds, musical or otherwise.

Putting aside the horrible lyrics, I also reject the notion that Paul Simon is gifted as a tunesmith in any way. Using "50 Ways" as an example once again, I can say that while his chord changes aren't really that offensive, they are in no way really representative of any real "genius" at work. The song is the litest of lite-funk shuffle--if it was any liter it would be inaudible. The most interesting musical aspect of this song is Steve Gadd's stop-start marching pattern, which gives this song a smidge (just a smidge) more rhythmic heft than the average Simon song. But it's the absolute same beat throughout, and when you think he's going to try rocking out when the chorus comes, he keeps plodding along at the same speed. Compare this performance with his fiery drumwork on Steely Dan's "Aja" to see why he was actually thought to have some intuitive musical ability as well as technical skill.

In conclusion, this is a man has even tried to go to fucking Africa to try to liven up his lily-white compositions and he only succeeded in embarrassing Ladysmith Black Mambazo. And instead of appearing in music videos with
the South African musicians he works with, he has Chevy Chase. Fuck him.

This is a slightly better version of "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover," I think, as performed by The Electric Mayhem (oh my God they actually have an artist page for them):


It's still a shame to see the normally unhinged Animal reduced to playing that monotonous Steve Gadd shuffle, but at least he has Rizzo to help him with playing tiny cymbals.

EDIT: Mendelson wrote to me not long after I wrote this to tell me that there is no possible way that Paul Simon could have made Ladysmith Black Mambazo more ridiculous than they already were. My point still stands.

Been a long time

Sorry I haven't been updating this much. There are several reasons why this is, not the least because I was just in an incredibly busy class that I didn't know if it was proper to write about it, what with my name being so Googleable these days. I was just in a class called Reading in the Content Area, which is basically an Education class in which we studied different literacy theories, some of which I can definitely say have more value than others. Part of my class was actually going to a high school every day for two weeks, from 8-11 on every weekday except Friday, when I would spend the whole day there. This turned out to be an exhausting process. I was very unsure about whether I would blog about it, considering there are all sorts of privacy issues regarding my fellow teachers and students, and what's more I'm not sure the experience was all that positive.

Anyhow, even beyond that my life is just a torrid mess anyway. I'm really jonesing for another English class, but I'll have to wait a month--this block I have Secondary Arts & Languages, which is more or less the same class as last time. This means more visiting the same school. Hopefully I will have to talk less about Hannah Montana. No, don't ask me to explain what I'm doing.

What have I been doing with my time these days? Well, aside from fucking everything up, I've been writing a fair amount and reading even more. It must have been a wise person who said, "We write...so that we do not get more pissed off than we already are." I've been delving into a lot of fiction (okay), poetry (not so good), and essays I just sent into The Cornellian after I got a reply saying that I shouldn't complain until I have myself contributed something of value. Yes, I finally relented. I will post these all in due time, probably this evening actually.

Did anyone see Mitt Romney drop out of the race? Wonderful news, even if his concession speech was nothing but more Republican tomfoolery:

Europe is facing a demographic disaster. That is the inevitable product of weakened faith in the Creator, failed families, disrespect for the sanctity of human life and eroded morality. Some reason that culture is merely an accessory to America’s vitality; we know that it is the source of our strength. And we are not dissuaded by the snickers and knowing glances when we stand up for family values, and morality, and culture. We will always be honored to stand on principle and to stand for principle.

I think a weakened faith in the Creator is exactly what some of us could use right now. In fact, one of the articles I wrote for The Cornellian (I wrote a bunch, just in case) is about exactly that. I will post it later, even though I think I've made pretty much all of the arguments already in these pages.

You can also look forward to some writing on Philip Roth (I'm in the midst of reading all of his novels, in order of publication), the situation in Gaza, composing music for the upcoming Fuel open mic night, being a miserable individual, my roommate playing Persona 3, my fear of Hillary Clinton's inevitable nomination, and my love-hate relationship (mostly love) with L.A.M.F.

Sorry everyone. It's not like you care.

Hilarious alert

I just happened to come across this trailer, and I can't stop laughing. Feel free to disregard everything but the last 30 seconds or so, as it's not really that funny. But that shark scene:

What's wrong with the Cornellian #1

This is the first in an ongoing series detailing my thoughts on everything that is wrong about The Cornellian, which just had a new issue on stands today. As such, this post probably won't be very interesting to people outside the Mt. Vernon area. The Cornellian's web site has a policy of putting some but not all of its articles online, so I'll try to link when I can.

To The Cornellian,

While I think the idea of a student run newspaper is a good one, and I think there's a lot to talk about even on a small campus like this one, I find that nearly every issue of The Cornellian is a disappointment, especially in regards to the opinion page. Every few weeks, I am always able to point out multiple examples of blatant inaccuracies, specious claims, and downright unjournalistic ethics. Obviously to some degree my opposition to a large part of this newspaper is based on my own personal politics, but I feel that The Cornellian doesn't do anything new or challenging, and I think it probably could. Whether this requires getting an entirely new staff, I don't know, although I would doubt it.

Here is an abridged list of the articles I have problems with in Volume 128, Issue 8, with my comments. Of course you can choose to ignore any and all of these comments, but I think there is a lot of people who feel the same way I do.

Page 1, "Caucus in Mount Vernon" by Mariel Canas: This seems to be all information that could have been gleaned by looking at a Wikipedia page about the Iowa caucus. It's all interesting information that I feel pretty much everyone at this school already knows. I was a bit intrigued by the comments Senator Tom Harkin made about the process, including him saying that it is, "Democracy at its very best." Well, I and many others could very easily argue that it is a democracy at its very worst (disqualifying a particular candidate unless they get more than 15% of the vote, having candidate shills give caucus goers free food and gifts, basing the proportion of candidates on an informal head count, etc.) and it might have been more interesting to include comments by people who believe that the Iowa caucus is a media-controlled sham, and moreover induces a lot of patronizing fawning over Iowa voters by both candidates and pundits alike. That's why I was pleased to see Ravahn's Samathi's article on the subject, which I actually thought proposed something new and interesting, entirely apart from all the Iowan self-love.

Page 1, "A raise in minimum wage" by Jess Horn: This article has someone, asked about the minimum wage increase, saying, "It means I have to work less hours to make the same amount, which is great!" This is a really superfluous comment that doesn't merit inclusion. Surely you could find people who could argue for the minimum wage increase besides the fact that it means you work less and get more money.

Page 2, "Hookah: Safer than cigarettes?" by Heidi Mitchell: Is it just me or does CAFE have a committee that puts in one agenda-pushing article per issue? I don't see the reason for this article's existence, and neither apparently does the author, as apparently only one study has been done on the subject, and not a very conclusive study at that. Maybe this subject would be more worthy in a few years after a lot of research has been done. No one is probably going to argue that smoking hookah is particularly healthy, but it seems that the final paragraph in particular has very anti-smoking bias, even as it purports to say that there is not sufficient evidence to back it up. Yes, smoking is bad for you, but so is taking away the right to do with your body what you wish. Also, I would be interested to know of where in popular culture that tobacco hookah smoking is portrayed in a positive light.


Page 5, "Carefree train ride? Think again" by Clint Parry: I know this is supposed to be a humor piece, and I know humor is a subjective experience and it's sort of hard to criticize, especially when we're talking about a newspaper column. I just want to know though, have you gotten much positive feedback from this article? Has anyone thought it to be even remotely funny? Maybe I'm wrong, and if so, by all means carry on. I fail to see anything remotely resembling humor. Maybe I just don't take trains enough.

Page 6, "Please stop scribbling in my solitude" by Clif Ashley: I actually agree with this article, I only wanted to mention that Clif Ashley actually admits to "not bothering to commit to any kind of intense research," which is a disclaimer that I think needs to be used a lot more in the Cornellian, at least the way it's going now. So props to him for that.

Page 6, "Change I once stood for" by John Clogg: Again, there's nothing wrong with this article, although I am a bit tired of people making the insulting claim over and over again that he is a fit leader by virtue of his passion and oratory skills as opposed to any substantive accomplishments, which is a claim he would like to counter. One sentence sort of bugged me: "Obama appealed to our emotions while Gov. Richardson appealed to our intellect." You may think so, but speak for yourself. I saw both of them and I would say that Obama's ideas seemed a lot more clear and innovative than Richardson, and Richardson happened to make what I felt to be a few huge gaffes, among them claiming that it would be a good idea to oust Musharraf. I think a lot of people felt similar.

Page 7, "Don't spend what you don't have" by Vincent Anderson: This is a patronizing article ("This may come as a startling revelation, but unfortunately credit cards are not magic"--this is O'Reilly level smarminess) that commits the cardinal sin of treating its audience like idiots, and is moreover significantly less clever than it thinks it is. One can easily make points like the ones made here, that college students don't know how to manage money and that they often don't know the consequences of credit card debt, but to claim that somehow kids today are more likely to do this than in the past is absurd. Maybe you can find some statistics to prove this is true, but I don't think you can. College students have always been this way, and you definitely have no way of backing up your claim that somehow our generation is more "impatience and materialistic"--whatever that means--than previous generations. I'm always perplexed when journalists or pundits argue that previous generations were somehow superior to the new generation, which is always portrayed as lazy and vacuous. It makes me downright angry when someone of my own generation, so indoctrinated by their parents, tries to make the same argument and laments a time they can't even remember. Moralizing about whether or not to use credit cards when your purchase is under $10 is silly: sometimes you don't have the money on you and it's quite handy. Doesn't mean you're going into debt anytime soon, as long as you pay it later.

Also, I don't know whether or not your equating of Ronald Reagan with fiscal responsibility was supposed to be a joke, but either way I laughed.

Page 8, "Decision 2008" by Erin McNeill: Again, I don't see the point of putting stuff on here that you could get just as easily from Wikipedia. What's more, I find your decision to include only the top three candidates of each party incredibly offensive, especially to those who choose their presidential candidates based on their positions and not on their polling numbers. Maybe there is an issue of space, but with information so superfluous (Romney wants to "improve energy efficiency?" How controversial!), I don't see why spreading the love wouldn't help a little bit.

Page 10, "Movies of 2007: Good, better, best" by Jessica Jones and Melissa Bruce: I was going to say something about how it was convenient that all of the best movies of the year happened to be American studio releases with big movie stars in them, but I guess living in Iowa you don't have an opportunity to see much else unless you happen to look pretty hard. I also don't know how you can reasonably call a film "indie" when it is distributed by Paramount and has stars like Samuel L. Jackson and Justin Timberlake in it. I appreciate the refreshing comments about Tim Burton.

Page 12, "New sci-fi novel will have you 'Going Postal'" by Amanda Gibson: Why are you reviewing a novel that came out in 2004? Surely other books of note have been released since then. Is there some resurgence in popularity of the book that I am missing? I don't think it's usually policy to have a book reviewer read just any book, especially when it has absolutely no bearing on anything in the present.

Some suggestions I have for future issues: asking the local Bijou owner about their no R-Rated movie policy (and discussing discrepancies in the ratings system, perhaps); an investigative piece discussing what unaffiliated Cornellians feel about social groups, if anything; interviews with more professors, especially if they have been working on any valuable scholarship (same goes for students); interviewing students taking various graduate exams, and how it affects their lives and relationships.

Thanks,
Nathan Sacks

I think I'm going to make a lot of enemies out of this. Too bad. I stand for journalistic ethics, they don't. Not yet, anyway.

Who just can't wait to feel so frozen out

After a particularly uneasy day and an uneasy class, I managed to stumble upon High Fidelity, a movie I have always had an uneasy relationship with, while channel-surfing. I ended up watching the majority of it, rather than doing my homework.

There's one part in the movie where John Cusack's character, in particularly dire straits, sits on a bench in the pouring rain and narrates to an invisible camera. It kind of made me wish that I could do that.

Sorry this hasn't been updated lately, but that will change soon. I just need to acclimate myself to the workload. Sorry.

Caucus

Am I pleased with the results? Partly. Am I impressed by my fellow Iowa voters? Not at all, and in fact I am considerably less impressed by the caucusing system than I was four years ago.

My precinct, known as 3-5, was set to have its caucus in an auditorium in the Scheman Building. This auditorium, by the way, was not even remotely wheelchair-accessible, which would pose problems later that night. I came with my mom and dad (ducking all the Edwards people with free sandwiches along the way) and stood in a long, very disorganized line for five minutes in order to get this little white sticker. It didn't even say anything on it. I could have easily just walked in without it.

Anyhow, the auditorium was absolutely packed (close to 500 people) and moreover was a huge mess. I made my way over to the Obama camp, only to discover that pretty much everyone was scattered throughout. After about 15 minutes of sitting around and not seeing anyone I recognized, the caucus finally began. A lot of really mundane stuff was accomplished--electing people to run the caucus and working out the details of how we were going to split up. The final decision was that anyone not supporting the top 3 candidates would have to leave the auditorium and go elsewhere.

I didn't see this, being part of the Obama camp, but apparently Dodd, Kucinich, Gravel and Biden were immediately out of the running. Those who chose to support them were forced to realign themselves with a different candidate (the cutoff is that any candidate that gets less than 15% is disqualified), and much bribing and coercing was done, particularly by Obama supporters, to get them to come to their side. After that was finally all done (and that in itself took like half an hour, as no one seemed to know where to go), we finally got the totals, which amounted to something like 40% Obama, 30% Edwards, 25% Clinton and 5% other. So we won, which was good, but it took forever to count heads and what's more someone could have easily miscounted.

After delegates were chosen, most everyone left, and I stayed around for a little bit to hear if any interesting platforms were to be raised. Turns out no, everyone just wanted to go home. So that was my caucus.

I was happy to see Obama win, and even more happy to see Clinton in third place. I was not really happy with Mike Huckabee's victory, but I can't really think of anyone much better at present. Still, though, I can't believe how meaningless this all is, and how completely undemocratic it is on top of that. You want proof? Decide for yourself:

-Shills for the candidates were outside of Scheman giving away free sandwiches and cookies, all presumably in the name of their preferred candidate.
-Candidates with less than 15% of the vote were ineligible, and those that chose to support them could not do so, not even with a write-in vote.
-Furthermore, as Ricky told me, the less popular candidates tried to threaten the Obama campaign into giving up enough of their members to constitute 15%, or else they would defect to Clinton. This is horrifying.
-By counting heads as opposed to using a secret ballot, voters could be openly harassed for expressing their views. I actually think that the republican caucus does this better, because they do a normal ballot.
-Also, counting heads leaves a lot of room for error, and people had to recount several times.

This whole process needs to be dropped altogether. It's absolutely unconscionable that we as a nation have decided on a system that disqualifies one's views unless they happen to be shared by a certain percentage of other people. That's not democracy. That's a bunch of bullshit.

At the very least, take it out of Iowa. All I saw yesterday was white bread, white bread, white bread. Are these people really the ones that should be deciding the future of our country?

I take it back

Remember when I said how wonderful it was to be an Iowan this time of year, what with all the attention and media and the glamor that goes along with it? I change my mind. It's getting more and more unbearable as we inch closer to Thursday. Today I had to field maybe a half-dozen automated calls, as well as another Obama person knocking on my door. And while I didn't really mind all the attention that much from all the candidates, I'm becoming increasingly bothered by all the frankly not deserved Iowa love coming from the candidates. What's worse, of course, is that Iowa voters eat it up. They love this, being told that they are the most important voters in the country. Frankly, it verges on being completely undemocratic, the way these candidates play into the "Iowa voters are gods among men" line. It's like the candidates are disgruntled teachers at a parent-teacher conference, and Iowa is the annoying rich kid.

I got at least three admittedly impressive but still automated calls from Joe Biden today. I have had enough. Hillary has taken over television. I'm actually not seeing much in the way of republican publicity, but I guess I don't really run in those circles. What's funny is that all these automated calls always begin with something like, "I apologize for this automated call, as I'm sure you are sick of them at this point..." Yeah, as if that's a good way to get my vote, Biden.

On a slightly related note, I got an E-Mail from Cornell College today. Apparently they are reopening the dorms temporarily tomorrow so that non-Iowa citizens can come back to Iowa and vote in the caucus (again, severely undemocratic). Also, both Scarlett Johannson and free pizza are supposed to be in College Hall 118 tomorrow at 5:30 to campaign for Obama. At first I thought this was ridiculous, having Scarlett Johannson show up when very few students are going to be on campus, but then I realized that that is probably a good thing for Scarlett Johannson, having an absolute minimum of creepy Cornell kids around.