this is what happens...

...when a chubby Jewish man who has henceforth written shallow, amusing, strange, and catchy ditties starts to write about what is in himself. What results is all of the best neuroses of Annie Hall and Portnoy's complaint whined over music that is serious, sad, and serene. But still strange.

Witness "Eskimo Snow", the newest release from Why?. I bought this record because I liked the self-titled Joey played for me in college. I've been listening to it a lot and the lyrics of the song below ("Into the Shadows of My Embrace") are something special, I think. I played it on the radio the other night but the person in charge of me made me turn it off after he sang "masturbatin".


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I conquered my own childhood silence and now the world is my lit confessional marquee,
but it'd take a busload of high school soccer girls to wash those hospitals off me

Oh, am I clean?
Nineteen.

They said sex will keep you young and make you older at the same time,
They said sex will have left you aged normally,
And so I guess it's sorta like smoking and walking at the same time
In that it will have left you aged normally

Oh, am I clean?
Lord, please, why me?

I wish I could feel close to somebody but I don't feel nothing.
Now they say I need to quit doing all this random ffff-(uckin)
Now I think my upstairs neighbor hears me masturbating,
And there's other one's peeping through the slits in my curtains
And I never got a name for my shady compulsion
'Cause i messed up and kissed my shrink in a jersey city hotel room..
And I know saying all this in public should make me feel funny,
But ya gotta yell something out you'd never tell nobody.

We found the dead fox, and a dozen matchbox cars, when we cut back the hedges on Cortelyou place,
How many got lost left so long they grew moss 'cause they recoiled into the shadows of my embrace?
We found the dead fox, and a dozen matchbox cars
When we cut back the hedges on Cortelyou Place,
How many got lost left so long they grew moss 'cause they recoiled into the shadows of my embrace?

Oh, am I clean?
Lord, please, why me?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dunno...I thought that these lyrics were pretty good and expressive of why (Why?) people sing disturbing and/or embarrassing things on physical artifacts (albums) for thousands of listeners forever and on. So I gave them to you in print.

You should listen to this album.

i'll never write a movie with a father character who speaks like an animatronic in an afterschool america,

-kevin?