And then people pile onto that episode again because of MELODY? That's just like outright admitting you're a turd. You're mad because the character who drives the conflict is too unsympathetic, AND you hate the cute, charming ingenue, too? Show me on the dolly where "Soos And The Real Girl" touched you.

It failed at spoonfeeding us, and exactly nothing else.

You're the only sane person here. Congratulations for noticing the insanely obvious. No, I mean seriously, because people who are paid money to write about this shit apparently can't.

I'm just gonna go ahead and direct you to the comment thread for "Blendin's Game", which is where I ended up basically tearing apart the accepted wisdom about "Soos And The Real Girl" and mounted my defense of it as the bleakest, most subversive episode the show has ever done. I hope there are more widely reviled GF…

"Unedited Footage Of A Bear". By Alan Resnick and Ben O'Brien Featuring the fabulous Donelli Sisters.

I have also, on a couple of occasions, come damn close to acting like this myself. The fact that I stepped back from that edge and tried to make sense of it all before that rage could totally consume me has given me an insight or two into it, I think….

I'll go ya one further and get autobiography in the mix - it reminds me of the epic text message rant that somebody who used t be one of my closest friends sent me last winter. We have not spoken since, and probably never will again. You're exactly right, it's that style - random missing punctuation, grandiose…

^Silly, isn't he?

*Comment that prevents you from having the last word, which you desperately want to have, because you're all worked up about something nobody else gives a shit about*

Yeah, just like this isn't a purse, it's a "satchel"…..

(I DID takes breaks in there, BTW. I have SOME concern for my nerve endings down there….)

Could this be it? Could I…..possibly be done ranting here?? Good, because I'm damn hungry. See you all in the funny pages……

Side two is way easier to explain - it's just outtakes from the Beggars and Bleed sessions. But it's just as revealing. First of all, if you've just kinda got it on in the background, (which, let me just say upfront, is THE WRONG WAY to listen to this disc) you might be left with the impression that the cover of…

Remember how I used the word "Homage"? Well, that's because "Each And Everyday Of The Year" is the best Roy Orbison song Roy Orbison never wrote. And "Don't Lie To Me" (the one straight-ahead four-piece blues-based rock song here) is the best Chuck Berry song Chuck Berry never wrote. And "Some Things Just Stick In…

Furthermore, while those aforementioned intentions might be used to explain why two of the more desirable heterosexual men alive in 1965 chose to write and record a preening, falsetto-laden song called "I'd Much Rather Be With The Boys", apparently it was meant as an empathetic tribute to an actual gay friend of…

In keeping with the trends of mid-60s British beat-pop made with augmented arrangements, there are strings, bells, the odd Central American-style….wooden-block-thingy-that-has-grooves-cut-in-it-so-when-you-scrape-it-with-a-stick-it-goes-"zzzzICK!" What the heck is that thing actually called?…..Anyway, it's pretty…

……okay, so Mick and Keith did this thing in 1965 where they wrote a whole bunch of songs they had no intention of recording with the rest of the group, just because, you know, they were creative and they wanted more money. The sessions were done at Olympic Studios, which was basically the anti-Regent, (the studio…

Side one is, admittedly, a LITTLE bit blasphemous in a way, but only in the afore-scrutinized context. See, Mick and Keith were great, GREAT songwriters from the get-go. We all know that, right? But do you know HOW great they were? Were the Stones not sort of synonymous with execution-over-substance where the Beatles…

With that Tolstoy-like tome of a preamble out of the way, let's get to the meat of the matter: the music. As its otherwise-unhelpful title suggests, the unifying theme of these otherwise unreleased recordings is transition, experimentation, homage and general off-message-ness, as far as the Stones go. This, of course,…

In the annals of truly indispensible rock music catalogs -of which there are, let's face it, a scant few- Metamorphosis might constitute the most dramatic disparity ever witnessed between the actual quality of of an LP's contents and the unfortunateness/annoyingness of its reason for existence. When it came out, it…