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The original column was published on February 10th, 2019 and can be found below.

And the record begins with a song of rebellion

Here we go. I've been putting off writing this one for a while. I'm going to try to keep the gushing to a minimum here, but Say Anything's ...Is A Real Boy has been called my favorite record more often than not over the last 6 or so years. I could go on about how "Alive With The Glory Of Love" is a perfect song, or how one of the best songs to cover with my high school band was "The Futile," with it's intro of SHIT, NOTHING MAKES SENSE. Or even how neither my wife nor I hesitated to say "I Want To Know Your Plans" had to be the first dance at our wedding. So instead of just talking about how flawless it is, I'd rather talk about why I've been listening to it a lot lately. I don't plan on getting into the songs that mean the most to me, but what the record is trying to say as a whole. As an aside, you gotta admit it doesn't get more precious than this, captured by Flying Machine Network host, Elle Riccardi.

So if this record is such an important part of my narrative, why am I writing about it now? This month, I'll be doing a two part column about Say Anything's first major release, the aforementioned ...Is A Real Boy, and their most recent and allegedly final record, Oliver Appropriate. I'll save most of the Oliver talk for next time, but the premise is that it's a concept album that extrapolates the character set up in ...Is A Real Boy and follows up on where that character would be 15 years on. So let's take a look at that guy's beginnings.

The general idea behind the record is that our narrator, an angst-ridden, entitled, suburban asshole has been cursed that everything he feels and thinks just pours out of his mouth in a dramatic, musical way. Definitely not how I see myself in any way, I swear. But this character isn't supposed to be our hero. I've been thinking a lot about the problematic lead style of storytelling and what it lets us explore. I'm a big fan of following the, I don't want to say villains, but the characters we aren't supposed to agree with, to help illustrate the flaws we all have. Seinfeld, It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, and Rick & Morty are prime examples of cautionary tales of letting your pettiness and ego get in the way of being a real human being. We also have characters like Han Solo, who we see develop from problematic asshole to hero in their own right. That growth is what makes them fan favorites. But I've also been thinking a whole lot about the role that these characters play when the wrong lessons are learned by the audience. Rick & Morty's fanbase is one of the most toxic places around and they worship at the feet of a character that's supposed to be the villain of the series; taking his narcissism as an ideal to strive for instead of seeing the damage he brings to the rest of the cast. People look up to Joker and Harley Quinn, a couple that was literally created to bring domestic abuse and mental illness to the forefront of the already traumatic and messy world of Batman. But does that mean we should abandon work with problematic characters, regardless of authorial intent? Personally, I think it's more important than ever to showcase the problems these characters work through and help show their motivations and the impact they have. Fiction is a safer place to explore the problems of society, than let people just like our characters exact more harm on the people