The Mopes - Accident Waiting To Happen


Look, Bottle. As the narrator, i know that you're exasperated, but you can't fly off on a subtley humorous tangent related to the lyrical content of an album as it interacts with your secondary subject. The reader can't follow it. 

Yes i can. I've been doing it the whole time. My imaginary reader can follow it. This isn't light, diversionary, casual reading. This is heavy, intricate philosophical investigation type stuff, albeit framed in the silly context of hiding in the basement listening to my rapidly growing record collection while leaving out a lot of the big words and jargon. Illustrations of the subject, rather than dry boring op-ed rants in the Sunday paper. I prefaced the whole project that way. Two years ago i said i was showing everyone how to do it, how to interpret real life, you just have to understand that you're along for the ride on my bus, and i don't have a map or route to follow. I apologized for hating some albums, said i don't know why i like this but i do, even the worst of the worst has some redeeming quality, wrestled with ideas that were too large for anyone to fully comprehend, said if it doesn't connect that's totally fine. If i think i went too far, or that some people forgot the perspective, i bring it back up like now. I've made it very clear that it's a horror show inside my head, and that's why i consciously choose to be objective, fair, humble, honest, friendly, and patient. I do have a borderline personality. Everything is fantastic or everything is horrible, and i have to actively talk myself back to the middle and do the one thing that keeps us all floating. I have to regulate myself, i can't have too much happy or too much sad. I have to avoid actual anger like the plague, so if your idea has fleas i'm not sticking around to get bit. 


Sometimes i get the mopes, but i don't want to have a duel at high noon. Today, i literally have The Mopes, Accident Waiting To Happen. This is a project by a bunch of friends, recorded around holidays during breaks from their respective bands in 1999. They got together when they could and recorded a couple songs by everyone. It caught my eye because Dan Vapid is here. I bought two of his albums on the spot when i randomly encountered him last summer, remember. This is pure, glorious, good natured pop-punk, and i'm a huge fan. No single member traveled less than 500 miles alone to make it. I have one of the first 500 orange marbled repressings, the very first Sounds Rad release. It might be the only album that's legitimately worth more than i paid for it, even after opening and listening to it. It's amazing. 


So, i'll try to meet you half way. I know i still have to address the ends and means justification debate, and i know i have to talk about my book example because i intentionally stopped at the break even point. I did my standard state a problem AND it's conclusion right at the start, fleshed out the innards, and now we're headed for the serendipitous accident that's waiting to happen at the end. Remember that time Skip's office flipped sideways and the sprinkler's came on? No, oh sorry, we haven't published the second book yet, i forgot. Spoiler alert, the end of this story involves a deep look at agency. Specifically, is there actually a villain being villainy? I don't know, i haven't written it yet. But, until then, please enjoy one of my favorite pop-punk practitioners and his friends making great 50s pop songs about modern feelings and experiences. Check out anything Dan Vapid's involved with, he's fantastic.

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