This is a post about self-deprecation. This is me thinking through thoughts. It is a 'web log.'

This is something I wrote on an old website as part of a series on favorite records. It's several years old now. Have some mid-late 2000s style music blogging. It's killing me not to edit any of it, but... it's a time capsule. From the vault.

Similar to Lungfish, Yo La Tengo is a band with a huge and flawless discography. They've released well over a dozen LPs and probably a bazillion other things over their decades long career in music. They are a band unafraid to experiment with different styles of music and even how they perform live.

Like with Lungfish, I don't know what the consensus "best" Yo La Tengo record is. This series isn't about the "best," right, but the albums that mean the most to me. That instantly makes Yo La Tengo's Painful the go-to choice here. Painful is one of their more consistent -- in overall sound -- records. Others, like I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One, explore a lot of different styles of music in one place. Painful is consistent and lets you slip into its world completely. You, as a listener, are allowed to spend 49 minutes in a very predictable, in a good way, atmosphere.

I have made additions and adjustments to the site in a few places. Why?! Well,

Listen up, inmate! (Consider this sentence a major spoiler warning, if you care about that kind of stuff.)

Persona 5 Royal is the best Japanese roleplaying game that isn’t Tactics Ogre. Recently released as an expanded take on the now few years’ old Persona 5, Royal furthers the story of a gang of outcast Japanese teens, each wronged in a different way by an adult or society. While ultimately a criticism of Japan, from the Lost Decade to Fukushima to today’s right-wing Abe government, the specifics of what it is condemning — corruption, selfishness, complicity, cruelty, sexism, and mindless obedience — are… well, baby, they’re universal.

Thanks. This helped.

Things aren't so hot these days, and there are lots of reasons to be anxious, mad, and depressed. I could enumerate them here, but anyone reading this already knows what's up. Instead, I'd like to do a little series on things that have been helping me See Through Fog.

First up: Hollywood Handbook, a podcast.