3 & 30: Alice in Chains, XTC, Zombie, and Eastwood

Plus: Lonesome Dove and the OMG Mets

You’re reading the latest installment of 3 & 30. Every month, we’ll each be sharing one record, one film, and one other wild card cultural product beyond those categories we’ve been loving. (That’s the 3.) As for the 30, we both recently turned 30 and each made a list of our 30 favorite movies. We’ll be going through them all, one movie at a time. You’ll see our latest 30 for 30 pick in an upcoming post.

Record of the month

Elliott: Alice in Chains — Jar of Flies

There was romanticized mystery and an appealing darkness about grunge music when I was a teen. That's far from an uncommon adolescent experience, but growing up about an hour south of its birthplace only strengthened the "this music belongs to me" feeling. My power ranking of the big 4 grunge groups has been in constant rotation since I was 12 — Pearl Jam and Nirvana jostled for the top spot for about 13 years, but I've come to believe that maturing into a wise, older young man is understanding that Soundgarden and Alice in Chains were the best grunge outfits all along.

The big 4 all released what could be considered "quiet" or "acoustic" songs, but Alice in Chains perfected a specific alternative vision to their grinding distortion and wails with Jar of Flies. Album, EP, whatever it is, at a breezy 30 minutes it lays bare the sorrow behind the screams. "Nutshell" has become a meme with TikToks poking fun at dads and teens crying in the car; getting the "Everybody Hurts" treatment. But it's hard to emphasize just how devastating the song is when you sit with those naked lyrics. Layne Staley's pained vocals followed by Jerry Cantrall's woeful riff that sounds like a desperate cry in need of saving — bone-chilling stuff.

But the bleakness of the first two tracks lets up with the following two. Moments from "I Stay Away" and "No Excuses" sound nothing short of triumphant, the former with the strings, and both with bright, full acoustic guitars, plus indelible bass lines that are on their own journey. The final three songs don't pack the same punch (impossible task), but almost serve as a welcome reprieve after the emotional overload of what came before them. "Don't Follow" contains the best use of harmonica in a grunge song in a not so crowded field of contenders.

If we were playing Music League but for albums, give me Jar of Flies for "best album to listen to as the sun goes down."

Shawn: XTC — Black Sea

I’ve listened to XTC’s Skylarking about once a year for the past half decade, and somehow never considered stretching out any further beyond it until this month. Well, the local AAA radio station took a break from playing the likes of KT Tunstall and Black Pumas for “Generals and Majors,” and it was over for me. Before this band became the tinkering studio obsessives of resplendent, lush craftsmanship, it turns out they were a far nervier bunch. Black Sea sits right at the midpoint between the post-punk beginnings and twilight period of orchestral pop — and it might just be my sweet spot for them so far. No matter how punchy or lyrically caustic, Andy Partridge couldn’t help but squeeze in a classic Beatles-aping melody, like the one to kick off “Respectable Street” and the record itself. Still quite a ways to go to hearing every record, but they’re undoubtedly the rare band to stay so consistent in quality while leading so many lives.

Film of the month

Elliott: Halloween II (Zombie, 2009)

I don't talk about my day job much on here and I will quickly mention — I'm a mental health therapist who frequently works with people who have experienced trauma. So when films get trauma right, my appreciation is a whole lot deeper than it would have been before I landed in this vocation. We live in a period of (least favorite term incoming) "elevated horror," and films about trauma have become all the rage. These are horror flicks that strive to be *about* something, often forgetting that when subtext becomes bolded, on the nose and in your face text, things are less interesting, and certainly less scary.

What's impressive about Rob Zombie's Halloween II is he unmistakably set out to make a film about trauma, does so with brutalizing success, and it could not be more different from the current crop of horror films. His sequel to his 2007 remake of John Carpenter's classic is a grindhouse and arthouse marriage made in heaven (or hell), steeped in both scarring reality and luminous fantasy. No film can touch Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me when it comes to capturing the horrors of trauma, but this is the first I've seen to at least merit comparisons. We've seen many horror sequels bring characters back to face off against their attempted killers, but they don't feel like Halloween II. They feel likes movies. Halloween II, while boasting with thrilling exaggerated style in most frames and cuts, captures actual human ugliness and suffering.

I've started formulating a list of films I'd show fellow therapists, including the films of Douglas Sirk and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (duh). Halloween II...welcome to Elliott's "movies recommended for therapists that they will probably never watch but really should."

Shawn: The 15:17 to Paris (Eastwood, 2018)

The lack of Juror #2 access, both in a local theater or anywhere else right now, is ruining my life. Luckily, there was another late-period Clint Eastwood masterpiece available to watch from the comfort of my own home. Whether you chalk it up to the performances of its three leads — appearing as themselves — or the political environment in which it arrived, The 15:17 to Paris was lambasted and misunderstood in its time. But underneath this story of three twentysomething friends, who thwart a terrorist train attack in Europe, is a highly strange and moving work from the master. The uber-tense handheld reenactment you’re sold on eventually comes, but only after the opening third, which plays like Evangelical Boyhood, replete with airsoft guns, wood-paneling, Imagine Dragons instrumentals, and a Letters From Iwo Jima poster in our hero’s bedroom (much to unpack). It’s equal parts baffling in tone and startlingly accurate in period detail. And then comes the travelogue hangout movie, as these buds scurry across the continent, with the stilted amateurish affect playing to their surroundings — frankly not unlike Hong Sang-soo’s many man abroad films. Despite the unconventional touches, it’s the stuff of classic 21st century Clint: ambitious, heroism-hungry guys, pressing up against the American institutions all too eager to flick them aside. Only this time there’s selfie sticks.

Wild Card

Elliott: Lonesome Dove

Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove is the best novel I've read in years. It's probably the most absorbing novel I've read period. It had been on my long list to read forever, but it vaulted to the top of the queue when my dear friend Chris Bench kept recommending it to me. If I were to live and work on a ranch with one of my friends, it would be Mr. Bench. I'm actually gonna turn it over to Chris now, to share what Lonesome Dove means to him:

Chris: June 2020 marked the beginning of my endless summer of dove.

I’ve read Larry McMurtry’s masterpiece Lonesome Dove three times since then and at this point, I might as well consider it my bible. Any person I’ve spoken to about novels, has heard me bring up my “cowboy book” and those that I don’t know well enough to trust with holding it carefully are probably confused about my affection as I rarely tell them more than, “it’s a 900 page brick about two old guys walking from Texas to Montana with a bunch of cows.” I undersell it on purpose though. I save how much it really means to me for friends I trust will hold it dearly. To speak on it the way it deserves though, I’d say that no other book has satisfied me so deeply and certainly no other piece of any popular culture has had me so seriously consider moving to Texas.

Lonesome Dove is forever my favorite novel. The world and the characters captured inside of it are rendered so beautifully and sharing LD with dear friends (Braeden, Emma, Burt, and Even Better’s own Elliott Duea) has made the whole experience even better.

Shawn: The 2024 Mets

The first repeat wild card of the newsletter goes out to an actual Wild Card team, my 2024 New York Mets. A team that, along with 28 other MLB clubs, fell short of the ultimate prize this year, but I’m confident they really did pack more humor, whimsy, and joy into the season than any other team (and non-championship Mets team in my life — which yes, is all of them). There was also the dread, misery, and despair — incredibly, all but concentrated to their 0-5 start and meltdown May, when their season seemed over at an astonishing 11 games under .500. Then, the rest is history. Francisco Lindor held a pivotal team meeting, Jose Iglesias got the call, and then they shapeshifted into the best team in baseball the rest of the way. Sean Manaea decided to become Chris Sale (and hopefully a forever Met), David Peterson became a legitimate guy, Mark Vientos leveled up into an honest-to-god superstar, and Lindor silenced every naysayer in the fanbase. Their playoff run featured too many instant classic moments to mention, so here’s a few:

• Game 161, trading back-breaking massive innings with the Braves, before Lindor’s eventual killshot that I, along with Gary Cohen, thought he got under. Best Mets game I’ve ever seen

• Pete’s monstrous, season- and legacy-saving homer off Devin Williams

• Francisco, once again, dealing the final blow to the Phillies. Don’t remember much else happening after that!

For what was supposed to be a transitional bridge year before a ton of albatross contacts and dead money come off the books, they exceeded expectations in every way. There’s no better feeling than playing with house money, and I appreciate this as the last year I may know that feeling as a fan for some time.