I don't know what happened to us, E. It didn't used to be like this. You'd release an album every two years or so and they were great. Your Blinking Lights is one of the finest albums I'm sure I've ever heard. I spent the day it came out travelling between record stores trying to find it, until I gave up and I went to Target and they were the only place that had it---evidence against the usefulness of independent record stores, for sure, and that was five years ago. I was twenty and that album held my hand through what was, at the time, the most devastating heart break I had ever experienced.

But now you, you're breaking my heart. Hombre Lobo was one thing, because at times it sounded like you were revisiting the sounds of Souljacker and I appreciated that, but the rest of the album was uneven, listening like it was an outtake jukebox from all your different eras. It had a few good songs, but overall it just wasn't an album I cared to listen to. When you announced that you were going to release two more albums in the next year I was floored: you're increasing your discography by 50% in such a short time, this will be totally rad.

But then I didn't even write about End Times. It was just too depressing and there was nothing on it that made me feel like I'd ever want to listen to it again after the first time. For someone who always made sadness sound like it was something to be happy about, you released the first album that sounded like you were sad about being sad, and it all seemed so resigned. I couldn't stomach it.

Initial reviews from fans of Tomorrow Morning suggested that this was a return to form in some way. I wondered briefly if you churned out two shitty outtake albums so you could fulfill your contract to Vagrant so you could then release another Blinking Lights-style masterpiece on your own (you do sing "My record label hates me" on this album). I became a little excited: this really might just be awesome.

But it's not. In some ways it's just Hombre Lobo Pt. 2. It starts off so strong, too. "I Am A Hummingbird" is one of the most unique songs you've ever made, and it's almost shocking how beautiful it is. The near-subconscious string flourishes in the background on "What I Have To Offer" take a so-so song and turn it into something lovely and uplifting.

But then there's songs like "My Baby Loves Me" which seems to borrow from Blinking Lights' play book, the same loud and awkward place "Going Fetal" came from. "The Man" could be an Eels parody song, with the lyric "ask the birds singin' I am the man". These sorts of things were cute at one time, but now they just seem kind of tired. With the exception of "This Is Where It Gets Good" and "I Am A Hummingbird" I feel like I've heard all these songs before.

It doesn't really stop there either. I can't hear "After The Earthquake" without waiting for your voice to come in singing "if you see Natalie..." because I swear it's the same song. "Spectacular Girl" might as well just be the same song as "Sweet Little Thing" even if they're not that similar, it's the same damn song.

I'm just hurt, you know, E. I don't think it's too much for me to expect from you another album that is on par with Blinking Lights. Tomorrow Morning isn't disappointing so much because the songs aren't good---they're Eels songs, after all, and you are my favorite band---but because it all sounds so rehashed and mashed together. This isn't an album, and neither were the other two. These are just collections of songs loosely united under a common theme, and it seems like there is only one album of really good songs between all three.

I am disappoint.

Sincerely, Stuy Parker

Relationships are a funny thing. It's only once you're far enough removed from them that you start to see aspects of them in a different light. I thought I was on top of my last one as far as interpretation goes, that I was reasonably safe from fallout and trauma: I was the one who caused all the grief, not the victim so much, right? Everything went better than expected...

But after finding a good amount of my stuff cut through with scissors (thirty condoms, twelve shirts, six DVDs, two books, two jackets, one camelbak) a few weeks after she left my house, plus her continued insistence on showing up wherever I want to go (simple case of common interests, or her stalking me like crazy---my paranoia insists: it must be obsession), has left me feeling a little like I should have got the hint a long time ago, like, sometime around the time I dumped her the second time. It should have stuck.

(I find out later that she didn't cut these things up right before she left in one last violent act of aggressiveness, no, she actually cut up things I wouldn't notice while we were together. Since she lived with me she had a good survey of shit I didn't ever touch, so when she'd get angry at me and running didn't quell it, she'd take scissors to my things. I don't know how long this went on for before she left, but it makes my "Please don't stab me in my sleep" jokes I told her in our final weeks seem a lot less funny now.)

In the end a lot of my problem with her was just that she never gave me enough space, not in the relationship, and now out of it I still feel like she's all up in my grill, clogging my pores. If I'm not masturbating over memories of our sex life, I'm getting angry in my head over what a rude cunt she is. My body can't take this much stress, all this dissonance between mind, heart, and cock!

On top of that it's complete bullshit that she's the female in this relationship, with the tits and the ass, because when it comes down to it any mutual friends you made while together, especially if they're guys or older single women (the "unmarrieds", as it were, of the internet), are going to stick to the tits and the ass---familiarity and desire are two things a guy trying to get people to choose sides can't possibly compete with. "Choosing sides" is obviously not the 'solution' but I don't think there is a solution in these situations.

In the end, us men, we fight a losing battle. We're doomed to failure to begin with, by extension of being men in this modern world---can't look at kids without worrying people think we're pedophiles; can't look at women without worrying about being accused of sexism---so when it comes down to a social battle between you and your ex-special lady, we're just screwed. The bitches will always win, and we'll skulk off licking our wounds, declaring ourselves gentlemen because instead of showing up and making a scene, we took a powder, ran and hid, and just handed the whole world over to her.

This isn't the first Eels song I'd ever heard. I grew up watching MTV in the mid-nineties so of course I saw the video for Novocaine for the Soul and I remember that for much of my elementary/middle school years it was one of the songs I would randomly get stuck in my head though I didn't actually have any of the music. (Connection by Elastica was another that I found myself singing to myself on the playground. Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money in My Hand was yet another.) I never sought out the majority of these songs, except for Elastica when I was in middle school and deep into an obsession with Garbage that was ridiculous and will never* be discussed here.

I was sixteen when I sat down with a copy of Electro-Shock Blues, fondly remembering Novocaine for the Soul and wanting to see what else Eels had to offer. I went to what I knew the first single was, Last Stop: This Town, and it all sounded so ridiculous to me. I didn't even get through the full track. I didn't understand why there was a big weird deep voice and people yelling, the whole thing sounded like a cartoon. I was totally above it.

A while later I came across a copy of Eels' third album, Daises of the Galaxy, and bought it despite the protests of my girlfriend at the time who insisted they sucked, which only bolstered my desire to love them fully. I think at this point in time I was really branching out into what I listened to, I think I discovered Peter Gabriel around the same time, but I am pretty sure that I wasn't at all ready for the horns and Hot Dog on a Stick references contained within album opener Grace Kelly Blues.

Maybe this is the song to blame for my strange obsession with Hot Dog On A Stick. Maybe my attachment to Eels early on came from this reference, as the Sara mentioned yesterday worked at a Hot Dog on a Stick at some point back then. Perhaps I was climbing out of my youthful depression at late sixteen and Daisies of the Galaxy spoke to the sad optimism that has quietly resided in me since that age?

I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out why Eels sound like home to me, why they're my top artist on last.fm (which is actually easily explained by the fact that I have fourteen hours of Eels songs on my iPod and I listen to pretty much all of them, completely dwarfing any other artist in my collection by sheer mass of material), why that no matter what they do, I love it.

I think it's the sad optimism. I have to wonder if it was inherent in me, this coping mechanism of saying, "Man, this is some god awful shit, and sure it'll probably get worse, but I might as well listen to some music and enjoy the day, you know?" or if Eels taught me that the way to cope with overwhelming sorrow by putting my face in the sun/rain and smiling at it all the same?

I don't know, but out of all the other bands I've mentioned this week, Eels is my #1 to this day. I really don't know what I would be like if I had never discovered the Eels, or if they had never existed. Mark Oliver Everett (and I link to his Wikipedia article here simply because the picture of him in it is absolutely ridiculous) is an inspiration. His autobiography, Things the Grandchildren Should Know was exactly what I expected, as E is just a regular guy who has a lot of baggage weighing him down due to the way his family deteriorated around him, but for the most part... I don't know, he's just like me. He doesn't cry about what's happened to him, he speaks about it frankly and embarrassingly, and it doesn't matter to him what anybody thinks, or if anybody thinks at all.

Jesus, I didn't mean to rub one out over Eels or anything. I guess I did.

Have a good day! If you're feeling down and you buy this album and listen to it and don't feel better (if you don't feel better half way into "I Like Birds" you have no soul), I will refund your money out of my own pocket.*

Site News: I'm pretty sure I don't reveal anything personal about myself in this screen shot so I'm going to post it here, even more publicly than it's already publicly posted on my Twitter, this is what it looks like when I write on here.

* "Never" is a relative term meant to equal any amount of time between now and around the time I die. ** Please allow at least 3 years for refund to process upon receipt of request.

I stopped being a fan of the holidays when I was very young, so young that I can't actually remember when it last was that I didn't feel somewhat discontent the whole time leading up to and during the actual holiday. Not sure why it is, really, and when I was a teenager I assumed it was one of those things that would pass as I age, but it hasn't yet. A lot of other things have (like failing to think before I speak, now I don't speak at all), but not the holiday thing. Oh well, maybe next year.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

A little late today. My Google Phone did not remind me to post a song today this morning. How sad is it that I am entirely reliant upon my cellphone to notify me of tasks I do every day lest I forget?

Eels is my #1 favoritest band in the whole wide world, so it is with great deliberation that I choose the first Eels song to upload. Luckily I have sent this song to a few people through email, so it exists for me even when I am not at home and do not have my musical pool to choose from (I am at work as I write this). I could write something about this song but I can't think of anything.

It is simply pretty.