Show #9 What a Mess

From the opening discussion, we see fragmented thoughts melding the TV show Breaking Bad with multiple announcements from tech companies. I don't need to point out that this is episode #9 and clearly a tribute to the White Album. It's a lure to the lazy listener to dismiss this show as so much Beatle honoring fluff, but there are rewards dear reader, albeit soul crushing ones. Like a sickly sweet Baklava, Jeff and Ty have intricately layered in pathos underneath. When they go back and forth over the price of an iPad mini, you can feel how much cost matters in this sluggish economy. The "mess" of the Windows 8 multiple platforms and Microsoft's slipshod announcement made me think of that once vital company now disgraced, but they kept piling it on. The whole Microsoft Surface from product to advertising is "dumb?" Sniff. When Ty offers a ray of hope that Android is the company to root for, Jeff shuts him down like a Kenmore 7001 suddenly seized by a fan belt that gave its all.

Even Apple is not safe from the knife. If the Nexus 7 dips below $100, they vow to run away from their whole iPad lab! This show deals so much with heartbreaking loss. By the time they were begging listeners to write songs, I was sobbing so inconsolably, the only option left was a trip to Ihop. I've spent many a red-eyed evening over a Cinn-a-Stack French toast, so they kind of know me there by now.

A little note about the production value. In show #9, they leave the ragged Steve Albini approach to recording and work in a more lush style I can only compare to Nelson Riddle. It makes the highs sweeping and the lows beyond low. They create this world for the listener, offer them to take off their shoes and have a bowl of Chex mix. The audience is in the room with them. Then the rug is pulled and the listener is laying on a hardwood floor as the green ceramic bowl plummets straight for the nose and little bits of cereal and pretzel waft delicately. It's quite something, really.