If God was lonely and sad... He would borrow my record collection...

             I am one of those types of people with an extremely addictive personality, especially pertaining to music, a form of art that is quickly absorbed into our subconscious, as opposed to, say, books and paintings which take longer to ingest(and are unavailable to me on construction-lengthened drive to work).  My newest obsession, as all music is cyclical in nature and thusly in my brain as well and as soon as it becomes a fully evolved part of my being will be stored with the thousands of other records taking up valuable brain space which used to be home to various and more intellectual topics(which sort of implies that music is not an intellectual pursuit, but for those of us use it to seek a higher understanding of human nature and by that I mean understanding why I’m so fucked up, it most certainly is)such as a working knowledge of calculus(which is useless to me now, anyhow)which has lasted the past two months insofar, aided specifically, I am sure, by my recent bout with a sort of lonely depression is:  Guided By Voices.  For clarity, I must specify that this all started with my re-watching of the entire series of the IT Crowd in preparation for me to fully enjoy the reunion-based final episode.  It reminded me that a long while ago, when I was much busier and not as lonely and depressed, I had heard about forty seconds or whatever, of the song “Game of Pricks”which I had shazam-ed(for those of you from the past, or the far distant future, shazam is a phone app that can listen to music and tell you the name of it)about five times in a row but never went back to listen to it, given that life at the time was much more interesting than searching out new music.  I have learned, the hard way, that you really need to enjoy those happy moments in life as much as possible, since they are always swinging back towards the other end of the pendulum. But before I move on and slather praise upon a band which has already been bukkaked(is that the past participle?  Its not really a word I use in normal life, or ever, until that point, which I felt was the perfect time to unleash it, and I might have fucked it up.) with praise, I must say that the IT reunion/final episode was brilliant.  Everything you could want from a show that’s been off the air for three years.  Everyone did an amazing job at getting back into character after so long, and the chemistry between them was very good.  That is all to say, the opposite of the putrid re-imagining(as its clearly not even close to the same show) of Arrested Development.  I understand they had scheduling obstacles and such, but season 4 FUCKING SUCKED and I don’t care how many people try to tell me otherwise, I watched it with my own eyes and ears and it just wasn’t funny(outside of the one gag which did really get me:  Gob and Michael trying to find a bottle opener for all the Mike’s Hard Lemonade and smash cut to them just twisting off the cap; gotta make those kiddie drinks easy to open.  It was the only bit they didn’t beat into you or over-explain, read:  dumb down for the idiots who loved this shitty new season because they missed the boat the first time, so they wanted to be the first to proclaim their love of it before it was uncool to do so).  But I could go off on a rant on that for days, which I have, segueing into my all-encompassing rant about how hipsters are ruining everything with their love of mediocrity and hatred of anything great, since they suck at everything, and therefore, the reason the movement has gotten so big is that it requires no real talent or skill or personality to be part of it, just an aversion to things that are real and brilliant, and so on and so forth.  Maybe one day I’ll write a book about it but for now I’ll just save it for when I’m drunk at a bar and Fun. or M*mf*rd *nd S*ns or the Lumineers or the Head and the Heart or whatever the new flavor of the month is, comes on the radio and all I can do is rant to keep the noise out of my brain and from slowly eating away at my sanity and my will to live in a world where Fun. exists…

Oh yeah, I was talking about Guided by Voices.  The reason this band works so fucking perfectly for my current situation(remember, lonely and depressed) is that they have the exact right balance of everything I need right now:  they are sad and funny and they have great melodies and hooks and they rock and then they take it down and get all sad and sexy with you(theres the perfect name of a hipster song “Sad and Sexy with You”).  Its everything you need,  and all in one band.  You can put on “Bee Thousand” or “Alien Lanes” or “Vampire on Titus” or rock out with“Isolation Drills”and they nail it, without being too annoyingly sad or too annoying happy; both of which you need but in controlled doses(please see your doctor for more information).  When Pollard sings “I am a lost soul, I shoot myself with Rock N’ Roll.  The hole I dig is bottomless but nothing else can set me free” it fucking kills me, every time.   This is a perfect example of music being a higher pursuit.  Its my own cheap therapy, as I follow another along their journey and, in turn, learn how to verbalize things about myself that I never could which makes me feel less alone in the world, and thusly less strange and fucked up.  I love it.  One of my favourite parts, which you only get to enjoy once, which just might be half the charm, is looking at the tracklist on the backs of the CD’s and imagining what I have in store for my ears.  Immediately upon purchasing “Bee Thousand”(my favorite GBV album, by the way) one song in particular piqued my interest and sent my mind a-reeling:  “Tractor Rape Chain.”  I couldn’t get past what a ridiculous combination of words that was; and I couldn’t even begin to imagine what song would fit that ridiculous title.   And, of course, it is now one of my favourite songs on the album.  Why?  It’s an absurdly insightful song about that moment in a relationship when trust becomes an issue.  There are two distinctly different instances in relationships, that I’ve found anyways, where a lack of trust can kill you.  The first being that moment in which you have to decide whether or not to commit to the relationship.  Its always a pivotal moment, when you’re past the point of just having fun whilst seeing this person occasionally, and you’re in the position of trying to determine just how much of yourself you want to give to this other person, just how many of the walls will come down,  and just exactly what it is that they mean to you or possibly could given the chance.  Its such an interesting moment in life and love, and it’s fascinated me to the point where I actually wrote a song specifically about just that called “Darkness and a Light.”  The protagonist laments this topic, knowing full well that all relationships will eventually fall into two opposite categories, with no real space in the middle, which are:  They are either doomed to fail, “the Darkness,” or can succeed and bring you endless joy and happiness, “The Light,” with most falling into the former, all while going up to the apartment and eventually bedding the lady he can’t stop thinking about.  But enough about me and my brilliance in songwriting…

The second instance in which trust becomes an issue, is further along in the relationship after you have decided to give the old love train another go, when something happens, some event of some kind, that puts that little inkling of doubt into your mind.  In the best case scenario, one would simply talk to the other about it and put the item to rest.  In the worst case scenario, it would eat and eat and eat away at you until it becomes more than reality and makes one hate the other with a deep seeded passion; with most scenarios falling somewhere in the middle, with a fight and hurt feelings, but no intense loathing.  This one is a little harder to explain simply, given the magnitude of variables(what actually happened, previous issues in both said relationship and past relationships of both involved, specific fears of the individuals involved,  etc. etc.) which is why I have touched upon this subject many times in many different songs, but only casually or sparingly, offering no real advice, merely mentioning its existence and the toll it takes on the people involved.  My new, as yet to be recorded, album is peppered with references to this kind of stuff.  And I’m going on record to be the first person to call the album “Brilliant” and “Full of great songs, expounding upon the human condition, all while making us dance and feel just generally better about the world around us” and “Simply put, Bradley Wik is a Genius.”  Shit, there I go again talking about myself, damn narcissistic singers…

Oh yeah, I was talking about Guided by Voices and the majestic wonder of a song that is “Tractor Rape Chain.”  All of that sort of depressing stuff about trust and relationships and the like(which believe me, I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, spending hours and hours and hours trying to it figure out) that I just said, was summed up beautifully by Robert Pollard in three minutes and five seconds…  Three minutes and five seconds!  Fuck!  What an incredible song!  And that’s just one of the many songs, just as amazing, and just as perfect for a guy like me who needs a little guidance right now, wherever I can get it from.  Thank you, Robert Pollard.  And that is why I am currently obsessed with and can’t stop listening to Guided by Voices…

A requiem for Aaron Rodgers' shoulder... or collarbone, or whatever...

Aaron Rodgers part I:  Make the pain go away… 

            Everything was set up so god-damned perfectly.  The Green Bay Packers were playing the Chicago Bears on Monday Night Football at Lambeau Field.  Well, not quite perfectly as Jay Cutler was out with a “Groin” Injury(he pulled it once and it felt so good he pulled it again.  Sorry, shitty old joke alert) and I like it when the Packers beat the Bears fair and square and get to rub it in Jay Cutler’s whiny, little face and so there’s no crying from south of the border(that’s a reference to Illinois, where Chicago is, for all those who are geographically challenged; or who grew up on the West Coast because for some fucking reason the people out there were taught NOTHING of America’s Heartland and if their planes didn’t always land in the right places,  they wouldn’t find fucking anything ever).  But still, it was pretty awesome since Jay Cutler would’ve just laid a turd anyhow like he had in every game since the Packers beat the Bears in the 2010 NFC Championship game, which, of course, Jay Cutler got hurt in.  Which, naturally, happens every time he starts to stink up the joint, but nevertheless, this is not about how much I hate Jay Cutler(who texted his marriage proposal to his future wife and then Fed-exed the ring to her, which she didn’t even care to open right away, even though he could have fucking asked her in person since she was just at his house earlier that day) but about how much I love Aaron Rodgers(which, consequently, is not as much as my girlfriend loves Aaron Rodgers.  I would be a little pissed about this if he wasn’t so tall and fucking good-looking and funny and talented and, oh yeah, the quarterback for the GREEN BAY FUCKING PACKERS!  Needless to say, its almost a point of pride for me that my girlfriend wants to fuck Aaron Rodgers, yeah, almost…). 

So, the stage was set, and man, was I excited all day.  I had to work at six o’clock that morning and started my countdown immediately; only eleven and a half hours til kickoff!  Yes, for all of those keeping score, that means I live on the West Coast, in Portland of all fucking places, but I won’t go into that here…  All day I annoyed the shit out of my co-workers with my half-hour announcements; only eight hours til kickoff!  All day I pined to be at Lambeau cooking brats and drinking beers with the Packers faithful; only five hours til kickoff!  I told stories of the Packers-Bears game I got to go to in 1996, the magical season of Brett Favre’s Super Bowl win, and how it was in December and it was fucking nine hundred below(or actually 15 degrees above zero, fahrenheit, but that’s still fucking cold when you’re sitting on a metal bench and the only things to keep you warm being your love of Packers football, the excitement of actually being able to be at a game and the body heat emanating off the fat guy next to you who is taking up half your seat); only one hour til kickoff!  And then, finally, as I was about to cum in my pants, it started!  And Aaron Rodgers(I don’t know why but I feel like I have to call him by his full name almost every time.  It feels weird not to since I don’t know him personally and he’s so famous and deity-like) marched us right down the field against those shitty Bears and it was awesome.  But then, all of the sudden, on what initially looked like a routine sack, our worst fears were realized with the one thing that could derail this magical season…  Aaron Rodgers was hurt…  At first, we didn’t think much of it, figuring he would be back in on the next drive.  But it kept looking worse and worse until finally, he jogged to the locker room.  I was watching the game with my girlfriend, and we just kinda looked at each other, not really knowing how to react.  Here was the man who kept this team together, and winning despite the injuries to what seems like EVERY other fucking major contributor on the team, at some point in this season.  I’m talking about Bryan Bulaga, Morgan Burnett, Clay Matthews(TWICE), Nick Perry, Randall Cobb, James Jones, Dujuan Harris, James Starks, Jermichael Finley, Brad Jones, Eddie Lacy, Casey Hayward; who have all missed games this season.  And, despite all of this, the Packers just reeled off four wins in a row, and barely missed the one before that.  He just kept making all the pain go away.  Aaron Rodgers was kicking ass and fucking taking names.  It didn’t matter who was on the field with him, you just always felt that Aaron(I’m going to try to stop referring to him by his full name all the time as I’m sure it’s pretty fucking annoying; but ooohh, it kinda just gave me shivers, it’s weird but I’ll give it a shot) was going to find them and get them the ball and somehow win every game.  But, suddenly, that was all gone.  When Rodgers jogged off the field, our attention, collectively as a state I’m sure, turned immediately from the game to Aaron Rodgers’ health.  It was all we could think about.  There was still a game happening and it was still close, so, we got behind the guys and cheered for them and cheered a ton for Eddie Lacy, who was just a beast from start to finish; but it wasn’t the same.  The Packers went on to, predictably, lose the game, but it didn’t hurt the way it normally would.  And it wasn’t until the next day, just like with the players, when the real pain set in…

Like many of the Green and Gold faithful, I was worried about Aaron and when he would get back, scared about the implications of this injury for our season and whether we could still make the playoffs and on and on.  There was no immediate information available on his collarbone and that made us nervous.  Some began to panic and, almost, but not quite, rightfully so.  The scariest part of any ordeal is not knowing.  Once, we found out it was a fractured clavicle or whatever, we could start to plan ahead and try to move on.  But again, this wasn’t just another injury, this was THE injury.  The one we might not be able to overcome.  It was a very trying couple of days.  I, and I know I’m not the only one, began looking at the schedule trying to figure out that, ok, if we can just win one or two of the games without Aaron maybe we can still make the playoffs as long as he’s back by December to win out, and ultimately, beat the Bears at Soldier Field.  A thousand different scenarios went through my, and Packers Nation’s, head.  But then Wednesday rolled around something changed for me.  A certain, inexplicable calm came about me.  I had been too wrapped up in the negative and completely lost perspective on the positive.  These are the Green Bay Packers, my team(Yes, I am a stockholder), the winningest and most storied franchise in the NFL, and it’s my job, as a lifelong fan, to be supportive and positve.  And, besides, the season is only half over.  There’s no need to lose any hope, or sleep, yet… That’s when a few things became very clear to me: 

1.     We have Mike McCarthy.  And if anyone can get this team, and more importantly Seneca Wallace and Scott Tolzien(and now Matt Flynn, once again), ready for this tough challenge, it’s him.

2.     Seneca Wallace has been a quarterback in the NFL for a long time so he definitely has quite a bit of talent and the Packers believed in him enough to pick him up.  I trust that the Packers personnel department knows exactly what they are doing and a thousand times more than me, who am I to doubt them.  Scott Tolzien led the Badgers to a Rose Bowl, so he must know a thing or two about football.  And Matt Flynn played a good game once, and made a fuck ton of money off the strength of that one game.

3.     If, no, when the Packers overcome this enormous challenge, there will be nothing that they cannot overcome and will definitely win the Super Bowl come February.

4.     (I try to have all my lists have four points, since that was, and in my mind still is,  Favre’s number and the best number EVER) Aaron Rodgers has done so much for this franchise that it’s unfair for me to be the slightest bit angry or whatever about any of this.  I feel incredibly lucky to have him on our side(praise be to the Lord Almighty we don’t have to play against him) and will never forget that…

Aaron Rodgers part II:  How do I love thee?  Let me count the ways…

            To expound upon point Favre, I mean four, Aaron Rodgers had the impossible task of taking over for the most famous, most popular, most exciting and most beloved player, not only in Green Bay, but in the ENTIRE FUCKING NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE.  He was set up almost surely to fail, as no one could possibly fill those enormous shoes(and there’s some masseuses in New York who would say that’s not the only enormous, um, thing…).  And, as a side note, if you didn’t already know(and how would you, you don’t know me.  And I’m not saying that in a Jerry Springer kind of “You Don’t Know Me” way, but in a normal, as we have never fucking met ever kind of way), Brett Favre is, BY FAR, my favorite player to ever play the great game of football.  He is my ultimate hero.  He is my childhood.  There is no one on Earth that I idolize more than Brett Favre.  And I was devastated to see him leave the Green Bay Packers, so, I, perhaps more than most, was very critical of Rodgers.  But that has all changed.  Aaron Rodgers has not only met and shouldered the unbearable expectations unfairly heaved upon him; he has surpassed them.  No one could have imagined(except Ted Thompson and Mike McCarthy, of course) that Rodgers would make Packers fans the luckiest fans in the world in that we have had, during my lifetime, not one, but two, back-to-back even, once-in-a-generation type players leading the Green Bay Packers.  I love Aaron Rodgers, I do, and I am no longer afraid to say it.  It doesn’t mean that I love Brett Favre any less, as I once thought it would; it only means that I have more love to give and I can indeed love two men in my lifetime.  Like a widower(or Cher in that terrible excuse for a song “Believe” that was fucking everywhere in 1998.  And if you don’t remember it, then thank God, as its only marginally better than “Who Dunnit?” by Genesis, whom I love, but is, by far, the worst fucking song I’ve ever heard and is like the fucking chicken pox, or its big brother herpes, once its in your system, its there forever and keeps popping up at the wrong moments, like, “Come on herpes, give me a break.  I’m trying to nail this drunk chick before she sobers up and sees I’m not the hot guy she was dancing with earlier, as he left with a hotter girl with lower self-esteem, and I swooped in for the easy pickings, but she’s clearly out of my league even still.”  Fucking herpes, that shits for life.  And, by the way, since we’re on the topic, if you are going to get herpes, please do it in a big city because getting herpes in a small town sucks a hairy, sweaty nutsack, which is super fucking gross, if you didn’t know.  I mean, not that I’ve ever done it, I haven’t I swear,  I’m not a crack head or anything, but even just thought of it, I mean, just, eww,  fucking eww.  Even straight ladies and gay dudes can’t like doing that, I would imagine.  Of course, there are always some freaks out there and I’m sure you could find them on Craigslist if, for some reason, you wanted your hairy, sweaty nutsack sucked…  But anyways, in the tiny town that I grew up in, only three thousand people, a girl I went to High School with found out she had herpes.  By the end of the week everyone in town knew about it and she was cast off like a leper from society.  I almost felt bad, but she did sex up some nasty dudes, so she kind of had it coming.  So, fuck it, I’m not the terrible person, she is), I am finding life and love once again. 

            Rodgers is, in many ways, the antithesis to Brett Favre.  The yin for his yang(not a cock reference, by the way).  And in this regard, I initially thought he was perhaps nothing more than a rebound fuck.  He was everything Brett wasn’t and almost nothing that Brett was, it seemed; besides an amazing quarterback playing for the greatest team in the whole world:  the Green Bay Packers.  I was so hurt by Brett leaving us, as many were, and needed someone different to pick up the pieces of my shattered life.  That was Aaron.  But seeing as we’re going on six years together, I must finally commit to this relationship and admit to myself what it really is.  And the more I watch Aaron Rodgers play, the more of Brett I see in him.  It’s the courage, both in the pocket and with his throws down the field.  It’s the poise.  When the biggest moments are upon him,  he’s not fazed and he doesn’t falter.  But most of all, it’s the ability to put not just an entire team, but the entire state of Wisconsin and the many, many Packers fans around the world, upon his shoulders and WIN.  Sustained success in the NFL is not an easy task, by any means.  As a matter of fact, its fucking hard as shit.  And I am not saying that these two men are solely responsible for all the past, present and future success of the Green Bay Packers, as there are countless other people(Mike Holmgren, Ron Wolf, Ted Thompson, Mike McCarthy and the entire staffs of these men plus all the players that have come(or gone to Minnesota), etc. etc.)responsible as well.  But if the past couple weeks without Aaron Rodgers, as we NEVER had to go without Brett Favre for more than a couple of quarters(297 starts in a fucking row!  Counting those other teams he played for, but still, goddamn it, that is unbelievably fucking amazing…), has taught us anything, we should be thanking God(and Ted Thompson) for number 12.  We’ve seen where we’d be without him, and I just don’t think I could take the heartbreak.  No Packers fan wants to revisit the 70’s and 80’s.  We love you Aaron; just stay the fuck away from our girlfriends…  You handsome devil, you…

Introductions are in order!

Introductions are in order…

            Hello computer and computer world.  I think it necessary to begin, well shit, at the beginning I guess.  I am Bradley Wik, yes, of the world famous and internationally renown Bradley Wik and the Charlatans; and this is an interwebs blog-type-thing.  For years now, people, and by that I mean our innumerable die-hard BWC lovers, have been telling me to get with the now and get online and stuff or whatever the fuck.  They say that this is the information age and there really isn’t much out there in the way of a BWC backstory or much information about the individual members.  People want to get to know Bradley Wik, for some odd reason, and see what makes him(me) tick.  In the olden days, musicians were shrouded in mystery and rumors and we loved every goddamned minute of it.  That was half the fun.  They were like mystical characters, geniuses hidden from the public.  But now that’s all gone.  People need a constant feeding of information regarding their favorite public figures and since I’m morally opposed to Facebooks and Twitters and am in no way capable of keeping myself limited to rigid word or character counts, I figured a blog would be the best way to do this.  No one cares, or should care, what I do on a daily basis anyways or what band I’m going to see tonight or what the sandwich I just ate for lunch looks like(whichever turkey was on sale, I can’t remember, and spinach, not too great) or what movie I just saw and if I liked it.  They just shouldn’t.  You get what I choose to give you, however much or little that may be.  And that’s the way it should be.  And if you don’t like it, there’s plenty of bridges in Portland.  Raise the collective IQ a little bit.  Just saying…

            Speaking of intelligence quotients, let me clarify that this is in no way an intellectual blog.  Please do not come in expecting to be enlightened or learn anything relevant to the world, outside of pop culture.  I will not explain why carbon is natures best natural binding element or why fusion creates four times the amount of energy as fission.  You do not need to know the quadratic formula nor do you need to understand what a hypotenuse is and how to calculate such information.  This is merely me, Bradley Wik, ranting and raving and rambling through various topics which strike my fancy and are, at least hopefully, somewhat entertaining and funny.  That being said, this blog is mostly just for me.  My girlfriend, my friends and my band are most certainly tired of listening to this shit and would love for me to have an alternate means of expressing these ridiculous, but well thought out, arguments on why I hate this or love that and so on and so forth.  I’m going to talk about whatever the fuck I want and you can, freely I might add, choose whether or not to care or keep reading.  If you love Mumford & Sons and don’t want to read about how much I hate them, then don’t, unless you have a sense of humor about it(I read everything I can find about why people hate the Boss and just laugh and laugh since he’s my favorite musician ever).  Keep in mind this is mainly for entertainment purposes.  But before going any further, I should mention that I do use a bit of “blue” language and cover some topics not really geared towards the younger people(read:  children).  So, if you are a small child, or the parent of a small child that catches said small child reading this and are super overprotective and don’t want them to read this, then stop reading, or, parents,  make them stop reading…  NOW…

            Phew, now that they’re gone, we’ll continue with the rest of you.  If YOU, yourself, are just easily offended and have no sense of humor, then, does Fuck You sound simple enough?  Get the fuck out of here and stop ruining it for all the normal people who like good shit.  OK, now that we’ve weeded out all the kiddies and assholes, I’ll move on…

            Like I said before, this is mainly about pop culture:  music, movies, maybe even books and art(though I wouldn’t want to make your brain hurt too much.  Remember, not an intellectual blog), sports(GO PACK GO!) and basically whatever else passes through this brilliant mind of mine.  As I mentioned earlier, this is mostly just for me; to get this nonsensical bullshit out of my head and for you to get to know me better; which hey, you wanted, not me.  Keep in mind, also, that this has nothing to do with the rest of the band.  It is merely the views and opinions of Bradley Wik(me, but I like to say my name.  It makes me feel good and more important than I actually am) and is in no way reflective of the band as a whole; but seeing as my name is kind of all over the band, I guess it is, at least a little.  Anyways, if you want to read a more well-thought out, well-written, not as rambling or angry or as offensive blog where you might actually learn something, please check out Nick Kostenborder’s(our drummer’s, if you’re keeeping score at home) blog at: http://capncrash.blogspot.com.  So, finally, if I haven’t chased you away and your interest is piqued, hopefully sexually as well, welcome to the OFFICIAL BLOG of Bradley Wik.  Read on and enjoy, motherfuckers…