Morgan Grimes.

I like the show "Chuck". It's a guilty pleasure. Morgan is my favorite. He's been having a rough time lately.

And while we're here, let me update my top ten favorite albums of all time. I did my top 50 a couple years ago, and there were some egregious errors. So I redid my top ten. Again, this is favorite, not best. A best list would look very different.

10. Redlight by the Slackers
The only ska to make the list, this is the best ska album ever. It just is. I think we can all agree on this.

9. Hello Rockview by Less Than Jake
That's because I don't count this as ska. LTJ makes me feel like I have to get out of the Iron Range if it kills me. Oh yeah, I did get out of the Iron Range. Oh double yeah, I was never there to begin with. Phew.

8. Fashion Nugget by Cake
Audry gave me this album because she didn't want it. It became the soundtrack to my stoner days. We're getting to the point in the list where almost no songs are duds anymore.

7. Something to Write Home About by the Get Up Kids
Besides the glaring grammatical error, this album is great all the way through. "I'm a Loner Dottie, A Rebel" is still the best song on here. They all remind me of the way things never were, if that makes any sense.

6. OK Computer by Radiohead
This would be at the very top of the best list. It blew my mind when I first heard it, and the subsequent 20,000 listens we all put in between 1997 and now. Don't act like you didn't try to figure out what the words meant. We all did.

5. Electro-Shock Blues by Eels
It's difficult for me to describe why I love this album so much. Part of me thinks it's the repeated listenings, but mostly I think it's because I know this is the soundtrack for anything devastating that might happen in the future. It's too bad they couldn't take out "Baby Genius". Then this would be the perfect album.

4. Parklife by Blur
Numbers two through four on this list are all up for debate. I'm actually a little surprised I put this at four. Honestly it should be at three, considering that this was the soundtrack to at least three years of my life. I can probably also blame this album for 10-15% of my snarkiness. Thanks, guys!

3. The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place by Explosions in the Sky
Wow. This totally effing destroys. No matter how often I listen to this, three things are true: 1. I listen to every single second from start to finish, 2. my life feels insanely epic, and 3. I would totally step outside for a smoke afterward if I still smoked. You really need to do yourself a favor and hear this before you die.

2. Downward Is Heavenward by Hum
When I started thinking of what I wanted my novel to be about, this was my starting point. I didn't think of characters or plot, I thought that I wanted this to be the soundtrack if it ever got made into a movie. A strange way to go about things, I know, but this is so atmospheric and rocking that it's impossible to deny.

1. Weezer (Blue Album) by Weezer
As if it could be anything else. Never has an album been more significant to me, never has an album had so high a strong/weak song ratio (10:0, if you care to know), never has an album rocked so hard. This is probably going to be at the top of the list until I die. I can't see anyone unseating them.

What do you think?

On Weezer.

I bought Weezer's Pinkerton on September 27, 1996, the Friday after it was released. I played it in the Goat Ride a lot over the next few months (Jan can probably attest to this), and it was good. When college come in 1998, suddenly all my friends were going gaga over this album. They all claimed that they had the album for a long time. They're liars. I didn't ever hear anyone even mention the second album from my second-favorite band for at least a year after its release. It's not that I'm trying to play the "I'm so much cooler than them" card, but it really annoyed me at the time and I had to get it off my chest.

That being said, the blue album is so much better. I know I'll get resistance from the "Pinkerton is proto-emo" camp, but I listened to the first album yesterday and it is just so amazing. Between "My Name is Jonas", "Undone", and "Only in Dreams", that's enough to do it. But every other song on the album is very good as well. I've never heard a better collection of ten consecutive songs.

But what I've really been wondering about is the new stuff. In Septbember 2000 I was fortunate enough to see Weezer at First Ave in Minneapolis. We showed up in line before the all-ages show even started, so we got to be right up front. It was sweet. Then Weezer came out with the green album, Maladroit, and whatever since then. And let's be honest, the worst song off the blue album is better than the best song off the green album. It's no comparison. When the green album came out I heard so many excuses trying to make it seem like it wasn't that bad. It was the same garbage they were saying about Star Wars Episode 1.

So my question is: If I could truncate Weezer's career after the release of Pinkerton, would I? That would mean getting rid of one of my fondest concert memories, but it would also rid the world of some pretty uninspired stuff and leave their legacy with its mythical mystique.

I'm thinking I would. Thoughts?

Finally, let's give a big thumbs up to my new favorite painter, Brandon Bird. His work does exactly what art is supposed to do, make you react. For example, I defy you to look at this image and not feel anything. Some other good ones can be found here, here, and here. Enjoy.

I'm off tomorrow for Good Friday. Probably hit y'all upz on Average Monday. Later.