In Which It Was Another Generation

After the Cold War, A Long Trek

by ALEX CARNEVALE

In difficult times we harken back to that which brings us life. The success of America's aims abroad had peaked when we sent the monstrosity known as the Soviet Union packing. The Russia people were beginning would eventually be ruled by Vladimir Putin and the mob. America triumphed in a new age of interstellar peace and happiness. Basically we were these guys.

A lot of us were discovering things about ourselves. The decade of the 1990s would spawn a number of such well-intentioned malcontents, Pauly Shore and Bob Saget to name a few. But the good people were the space people.

The generation before had been marked by the constant monotone of war which found a perilous future in time and space, along with profound moments (like those in the songs of whales) that allowed us to remember what we'd lost. Captain Picard didn't want to blow anyone's face off. He wasn't quick to the gun. He was never even kind of a dick.

The technology that surrounded these peaceful warriors had a relatively negligible effect on its denizens, whose mental processes largely weren't different from 20th century norms. In the character of Data, Star Trek: The Next Generation made an artificial human into humanity and went in depth to prove a machine was, in fact, still a man.

Although men could find whatever drink or food they desired transported to their room, this did not dim their enthusiasm for conquest. Relationships were short-lived, they were as real as they had been before: only more fleeting in their duration. The quickening of life did not quicken the souls of these peacefaring folk.

It can be said that the point of this exercise was to chronicle the fate of man as he adapted himself to the stars, but whatever development would have been made along those lines, Wesley Crusher was a weak-minded syphocant, the symbolic lovechild of a mentally ill Picard. Others failed to adapt as poorly as Wesley — Troi nearly went insane once per season, and Riker always had a little Stephon Marbury in him.

In the Emmy-winning episode "The Inner Light" a probe broadcasting the dying wish of a destroyed civilization attached itself to the handsome Picard. Jean-Luc Picard's dream was of a pretechnological civilization, and he himself adheres to the aims of the age — a promised benign future for him and his family, and obedience to whatever God he chose. In contrast, Data was the far more complex thinker.

Man and machine are destined to become entwined together in bondage, and Star Trek: TNG's plan was to bring that out of hiding, see how the old values held up in a world where you could beam down to a planet full of evil dwarves. This was how we could decide whether technology would overwhelm us entirely.

Among the alien landscape, these figures embodied the older perspective, the West as it was in the world. The Borg became Picard's biggest enemy, the perversity of technological advancement, the hive mind that will abide no other. We were always in greater danger from some casual vicissitude of modernity, like sacrificing whales or changing the timeline. Man's environmental indulgence slowly became the larger symptom of his fate.

Before this period, we imagining ourselves living on the moon, exploring Mars. Then Star Trek came and reminded us that despite this, we were very much alone in the universe.

Is this a future we would want? A lifetime of policing galaxies may be too much to ask from any starfaring race. In the real world, America would of course have her own foreign policy adventures against Communist enemies both real and imagined. The Klingons and the rest disappeared, they were pacified by the entreaties of the Federation. If mankind (America) had to stand atop the galaxies, would he have to also lose his mind and sense of purpose?

Star Trek: TNG was a phenomenon on its debut. After a clumsy first season they soon got to Data and what the rest of it meant by the second season. In the middle seasons the show would abandon the alien-of-the-week concept and expand the purview of the show.

By the seventh season it had been one time travel episode too many and Data had a ho in every city so things were backtracking fast. Picard was looking extremely fatigued, and the lines under Riker's eyes made viewers sad and nostalgic for the last of the exultants.

Alex Carnevale is the editor of This Recording. He tumbls here.

star trek: first contact storyboard

"Snails" — The Format (mp3)

"The Compromise" — The Format (mp3)

"Dead End" — The Format (mp3)

In Which We Enter A Mad Rage

Voices Carry

by ELEANOR MORROW

Mad Men is a drama that takes itself seriously. Even an innocent morning drive portends something more forboding. Don's daughter Sally hears the grownups laughing it up on a sad day, and the poor girl takes offense to her family's lack of grief. "He's gone, don't you understand?" she tells them, and goes into the television room to learn how to most pleasantly deal with her pain.

The implied guilt parents bestow on their children is on full display in this third season of Mad Men. Between closet homosexuality, abortion, rape, incest, World War II flashbacks, gender confusion, and jai alai, Sterling Cooper has its hands full.

Don Draper has never stopped reliving the heartbreak of that childhood. Don wakes up every night, and the dream's the same. He's basically the Terminator, who also didn't come onto the scene until the end of the world was nigh. Don stares longingly at old photographs and sobs over his lost youth. He's like the Monopoly man but even less convincing.

Mr. Weiner's show comes alive when Don runs headlong against something. The mercurial ad wizard took a leave of absence in Los Angeles last season, and when he came back he should have found a new brilliant British mind to contend with his creative loneliness. Instead it's the same old DD: Don slyly reassuring the employees he trusts by patting them on the back even when they've failed. Don follows a credo that I salute in full: when someone most expects you to destroy them, show mercy.

What exactly was wrong with Sal's Bye Bye Birdie ad for Patio? "She's not Ann-Margaret," was Roger's considered opinion. Thanks for showing up to work, Roger, that appears to be the first meeting you'd made it to where someone wasn't fired in the last year. But yet, the ad itself was off — creeping, pleading. The ad lacked the unbridled natural enthusiasm of the original. It felt like pretend.

I don't know whether to be impressed that Sal's paramour figured out her husband was a flaming homosexual, or feel bad for her. At least she knows the truth for herself. Sal's reliable and trustworthy, one of the few characters in Mad Men's milieu that we do believe.

Jude Law will soon pop up on Broadway as Hamlet, an inspired version where everything the Dane says will obviously be total horseshit. What is Hamlet if we can't be convinced the ghost is real? Mad Men is composed of moments that would be more disconcerting if Jon Hamm and Vincent Kartheiser weren't snickering in delight. Mad Men, with its 21st century tongue and tenous grasp of historical events, seems no more real than ABC's Mad Men counter-programming, Defying Gravity.

Airing in about sixteen different timeslots on ABC before it's thankfully canceled, Defying Gravity amazes me in its utter preposterousness and lack of charm. Astronauts are hurtling across the solar system, and yet all they can think about is what to wear for their interstellar vampire ball (really). This was an actual plot line from Sunday's Defying Gravity. Pitched to ABC execs as "Grey's Anatomy in space", hopefully God will smite every single person involved in the creation of this show, beginning with former Office Space drone Ron Livingston plays the strikingly handsome astronaut Maddux Donner.

Defying Gravity has taken the meaningless soap opera nonsense perfected by The Sopranos and viciously murdered it. The Sopranos proved that dozens of unlike, occasionally connected events could be a new kind of drama; Gravity takes that same formula and ruins it. Matthew Weiner (with David Chase when the latter was sober) basically invented the subtle plot twist where the wrong slip kills a man while he's standing in line at A&P...and they don't even show it. Subtlety is wasted on the young.

Sincerity in human drama staged or fake isn't easy to come by. That our most convincingly heroic actors became our statesmen is tossed over by Don, Pete and the prince of jai alai, that the son must bear the burden of the father. Later, the heads of Sterling Cooper debate whether or not to accept the money of a trust fund baby.

Things aren't so easy in the other borough. A mother demands a 27-inch television and tells her second daughter that she'll be raped in Manhattan. Peggy's reaction was remarkably understated — children always have a slight hesitance in trusting their parents' change of minds.

Last week, Christina Hendricks had to eat huge snausages and play accordion for her husband's doctor buddies. This week she's Miss Manners telling Peggy how to be exciting and fun. "When he has you on the floor," she tells Peggy, "whimper slightly." There's so much the young can learn from the old.

I fear for Bobby Draper — he's not even protected from the vicissitudes of American violence when his father sits mere feet away next to the family's frightening animatronic dog.

"My son lives in the shadow of my success," a client tells Don. He can't help but think of his own son, who barely notices that he lives in the same shadow.

Eleanor Morrow is the senior contributor to This Recording. She tumbls here. You can find Molly Lambert's review of last week's Mad Men here.

"Stockades" — Frog Eyes (mp3)

"Bushels" — Frog Eyes (mp3)

"Reform the Countryside" — Frog Eyes (mp3)

In Which We Enter Molly Lambert's Brain

Things I Find Funny

by MOLLY LAMBERT

Phyllis Diller, Dave Chappelle, Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, the This Recording YouTube channel, Mary Hartman Mary Hartman, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Bob and Ray, SCTV, Wanda Sykes, Susie Essman, Cheryl Hines

When people tell you how they're going to say "fuck it" to life and move to some other city or country and then you see them three months later at a party and they're all "o, hai," Alex's crush on Ayn Rand, when Alex threatens to make a list of "The top 10 Women Of All Time" and asks for help because he can't come up with 10, culture-bound syndromes, fanfic, Ernie Kovacs

"Lesbians" who backtrack and start dating guys and are all "I know, we'll talk about it later," when Alex says something genuine and heartfelt and then I realize he's just fucking with me, When Marky Mark goes to record the song in Boogie Nights, religions, tumblr, Keeping A Notebook, Mary Rambin, when I looked up "self worth" on thesaurus.com and this happened:

South Park, Stephen Colbert, Bill Murray, Mark Twain, Mindy Kaling, David Sedaris, Becca Wiener, Emily Gould, Rachael Bedard, the internet, monkeys dressed up like people, Super Grover, The Muppet Show, Mah Nà Mah Nà, Huga Wuga

Ernest Hemingway and Orson Welles wrestling, Louis C.K. and Lucky Louie, Chunklet Magazine, Your Show Of Shows, Lindsayism, Chappelle's Show, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry and Jeff Garlin trying to keep a straight face in their Curb scenes with Susie Essman, Nichols and May, Doug Benson, Oh my car

Baby porcupines, capybaras, Narwhals, bears, giant pandas cubs, red pandas, cats, cats in outfits making faces showing you how much they don't want to be in an outfit, the hilarious hyrax:

The Cable Guy, Clueless, Safe Men, Heathers, Mean Girls, Night Of The Lepus, The King Of Comedy, Dick, Caddyshack, Animal House, The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh, Brain Candy (the cab driver, toast fucking, Cancer Boy, Happiness Pie, Dunk The Drug! "It was only a couple of Flipper babies!")

Chris! I thought you said the drug was ready! I'm confused.

When sidekicks are vastly superior to the person they're supposedly a sidekick to (Garth Algar, Luigi, Donald Duck, Daffy Duck, Cameron from Ferris Bueller), Andrew Lasken's videos, his love song to Riskay, his tribute to Daniel Powter's exposed brain syndrome, interviews with Quentin Tarantino where the interviewer can't get him to stop talking, sloth babies:

The Best Show On WFMU, The Gorch, Philly Boy Roy, The Best Show recaps on Recidivism, The Erowid Vault, geoducks, Campus Ladies

Thinking about Biggie ghostwriting Hard Core for Lil' Kim and imagining him coming up with lines like "I used to be scared of the dick, Now I throw lips to the shit, Handle it like a real bitch", Lil' Wayne, Suga Free, Snoop's interest in country, Trick Daddy

Tina Fey, Amy Sedaris, Morgan Murphy, Jen Kirkman, Mo Collins, Chelsea Peretti, Laura Kightlinger and The Minor Accomplishments Of Jackie Woodman, Jessica Chaffin, Melinda Hill, C.J. Arabia, Natasha Leggero, Amanda Egge, Kat Dennings and her video blog, Mary Van Note, Charlyne Yi

Al Capp, Rube Goldberg, Edward Gorey, Jules Feiffer, B. Kliban, Quentin Blake, David Shrigley, Roz Chast, Charles Addams, Peter Bagge, Chick Tracts, Carl Barks, Lynda Barry, R. Crumb, Archie, Krazy Kat, Nancy, Little Lulu, Plastic Man, Julia Wertz

Daniel Pinkwater, Jean Shepherd, S.J. Perelman, Charlie Kaufman, David Sedaris, Woody Allen before he got creepy, The Marx Brothers (ranked) 1. Harpo, 2. Groucho 3. Chico, Mel Brooks, Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, Mae West, Buster Keaton

Bob Dylan, particularly as uber-indie a-hole circa "Don't Look Back," Will Oldham, R. Kelly, Mariah Carey, Pete Wentz's man-crush on John Mayer, John Mayer on Chappelle's show, Prince, Prince's desire to call Apollonia's group "Vagina 6", the Mary Jane Girls, Klymaxx and Bernadette Cooper from Klymaxx

Ghostbusters, Ghostbusters 2, Godfather 3, all the comedies made by the Coen brothers and most of the dramas too, talking about Southland Tales and still not having seen it (although to be fair, I have watched long sequences on youtube, which seems like the way it was meant to be experienced), Santa's Village

The Tess And Molly Show, Gabe & Jenny, Kristen Schaal, Amy Poehler, Rachel Dratch, Missi Pyle, ONTD, fourfour and Rich Juzwiak, Flight Of The Conchords, The episode of The Sarah Silverman Show where Sarah tried to have a crush on Officer Tig Notaro, all the jokes on that show about Valley Village

Freaks and Geeks, Bill Haverchuck, Jason Segel's performances in the Apatow canon, especially as Eric on Undeclared, when Neal does the ventriloquism routine, Biff as Coach Fredericks, Dave 'Gruber' Allen as Mr. Rosso

Dorothy Parker, Kim Deal, Ellen Page looking super uncomfortable in a fancy dress on the red carpet, Frank Black shirtless, Pot Psychology, Emily Gould, Tracie Egan, when Moe Tkacik hasn't had sex in a while and she writes something really cranky and funny and awesome, picturing Nick Denton sitting on a cloud made of money like Zeus and laughing at all of us

Livia Soprano, Livia saying "Oh poor you," Paulie Walnuts and Silvio Dante, Christophuh and Ade, Janice "Parvati" Soprano

Max Silvestri, Human Giant, Showfriendz, Jerry Minor, Eugene Mirman, Katt Williams, the Chongalicious girls, Jane Lynch especially in Talladega Nights as Ricky Bobby's mom

Garry Shandling, The Larry Sanders Show, when Larry thought David Duchovny had a crush on him, when Hank's sex tape comes out and on it he's asking two girls if they want a "mouthful of Hank," everything Mary Lynn Rajskub does especially being on 24, and her deleted scene with Tom Cruise in Magnolia

Everybody on The (American) Office, but especially Toby, Meredith, Stanley, and Creed. Oh and also Angela, Kelly Kapoor and Phyllis, are my dream guests for a slumber party. When B.J. moved to New York and became a cokehead. The dinner party at Michael and Jan's house, Jan's scented candle business

The whole 30 Rock gang, especially Liz Lemon, Tracy, Jenna, Kenneth, and Jack, the Sheinhardt wig company. Everybody on How I Met Your Mother, especially NPH and Willow, T-Pain, Plies, rap beefs that don't end in death, Weird Al, novelty musical genres, Girls Aloud, kitten in a tissue box

Ernst Lubitsch, Billy Wilder, Preston Sturges, North By Northwest, Cary Grant, Warren Beatty in Shampoo and Reds, in Sullivan's Travels when they show the cartoon to the chain gang, Robert Altman, The Long Goodbye and California Split

Madeline Kahn, Carole Lombard, Diane Keaton, Joan Blondell, Jean Harlow, Marilyn Monroe, Barbara Stanwyck, Katharine Hepburn, Bernadette Peters, Cloris Leachman, Teri Garr

Tess Lynch, Tyler Coates, Alex Carnevale, Bridget Moloney, Danish Aziz, Sam Solomon, Mike Metzger, Lizzy Klein, Mike D, Amir Shoucri, Joni and Susanna , my parents, my whole family, my brother Ben Lambert and his Lambo drawings

another case of exposed brain sydrome

Jack White's hair, Britney Spears, Pete Doherty, Dov Charney, Hippies, Punks, Noise Music, Hipsters, Techno, the Hennifer Lopez taco-flavored keeses, Butters, Matt & Trey, Home Movies, Brendon Small, the many alt white people of Portland

Professor Klarvin and his lover Virginia

ABBA videos, David Byrne's dinner with Brian Eno, The Jonas Brothers and their purity rings, Sneakernight, Miley Cyrus lyrics ("if you text me, I'll delete it"), Disney's stable of child stars

Shitty serious teen films that come on the movie channels at 2 am and usually star Dominique Swain, Bijou Phillips, or some combination thereof, the all-time best/worst one of these; Havoc, starring Bijou Phillips, Anne Hathaway, Anne Hathaway's breasts, and Freddie Rodriguez as a cholo from the east side of LA, the fact that Havoc was written by Stephen Gaghan, who also wrote shitty/serious non-teen movie Traffic

Zach Galifianakis, Patton Oswalt, Brian Posehn, and Maria Bamford, the Comedians Of Comedy DVD, the part where they go to a Cracker Barrel, Puns on WALL*E, Puns on "He's Just Not That Into You," the compulsive inability to stop punning known as witzelsucht, Larry David as the "temp Beatle"

When white people pick one rapper to like and it's Lil' Wayne, when rappers pick one white people band to like and it's Coldplay, pan flutes, people who sexualize The Chippettes, the parts in Walk Hard with Tim Meadows, "I'm just so tired of all these Star Wars" Mr. Show's Monster Parties: Fact Or Fiction:

Molly Lambert is the managing editor of This Recording. She twitters here and tumbls here.

"For the Rest of Your Life" — Hope Sandoval and the Warm Inventions (mp3)

"Satellite" — Hope Sandoval and the Warm Inventions (mp3)

"Lady Jessica and Sam" — Hope Sandoval and the Warm Inventions (mp3)

THIS RECORDING IS THE FREAK BOOK