Synchronicity, not Jungian

Lucero has a new album coming out on October 6th. I love Lucero. They've got a new song up on their website called "The Devil and Maggie Chascarillo." I listened to it and thought three things: 1) wow, I can actually understand the words, even though I have no idea what Ben Nichols is talking about, 2) this is an awesome song, and 3) is that a horn section? Awesome.

So two days later, the A.V. Club website (in the midst of their "comics" week in honor of Comic-Con) ran an article in their "Gateways to Geekery" column, about "Love and Rockets," a 28-year-long comic series, still running, by the Hernandez brothers, about, well, here:

"There’s long been a running battle between those who prefer Jaime’s “Locas” stories—a slice-of-life depiction of the L.A. punk-rock scene and its aftermath, focusing on a handful of mostly Latino characters and drawn in a clean-line style heavily influenced by the Archie Comics work of Dan DeCarlo—and those who prefer Beto’s “Heartbreak Soup” stories, which use a rougher, more cartoony style to tell the often-dark story of the natives of Palomar, a fictional Latin American town."

And I read this and thought, hey, "love and rockets" is a phrase in that new Lucero song. And then I read further and found:

"And it let Jaime stretch his storytelling legs: for once, he focuses on his male characters as much as his women, and we get a chance—rare in the early days of the comic—to see Maggie Chascarillo’s personality outside of Hopey Glass’ influence."

And then I thought, well, no wonder. The song is about the comics.

And so I had one of those bizarre moments of synchronicity that the weird popular culture I love seems to provide me with on a fairly regular basis. It's like learning a new vocabulary word and then seeing it three different times in three totally different places the day after you learn it. It's like the whole world is connected in a way I hadn't previously noticed. And it's a great way of learning about new kinds of weird, underground popular culture that I will probably like but would otherwise never have heard about.

Unfortunately for me, the collections mentioned in the A.V. Club column all run $30+. On the other hand, I'm moving to Austin soon, and I'm pretty sure Austin has a couple of great comic book stores (and by "pretty sure" I mean "I've been to them and they rock") that will carry "Love and Rockets." And I can stop by and check them out to see if it's something I might enjoy.

Plus my opinion of Ben Nichols just went up. Anybody that can write songs about both Blood Meridian and underground cult comic books (not at the same time) has my respect.

http://www.avclub.com/articles/love-and-rockets,30774/

http://www.luceromusic.com/