Everything Will Be Alright in the End - Glossary
This article collates characters and terminology appearing in promotional and packaging materials for Weezer's 2014 album, Everything Will Be Alright in the End.
Astronauts
The Astronauts are a fictional band from the 2014 Weezer concept album Everything Will Be Alright in the End. They are based on the band Weezer, with the lead musician, Sebastian being largely based on the real life of Weezer front man Rivers Cuomo. The band appears to have at least two additional, unnamed band members, as seen in the final teaser video.
Though the exact chronology of the album's narrative is difficult to ascertain, the band is likely formed after Sebastian moves to Los Angeles. At some point in the band's history, they win an award for Album of the Year, which Sebastian dedicates to his late father, Joe Laffoley. Sometime around 1996 or 1997, the band releases an album titled Help Me, with a song titled "My Body Pain", which is critically panned (a likely nod to the album Pinkerton, which featured a song referencing Cuomo's painful leg surgery). The album's opening track, "Ain't Got Nobody", features a vocal clip (credited in the liner notes as "RFJT DJ", voiced by comedian Jake Fogelnest) that says "In the "Where Are They Now?" category: The Astronauts, with their first big hit..." before the lyrics "Ain't... got... nobody" fade in, possibly suggesting that "Ain't Got Nobody" is meant to be an Astronauts song. In one video, the character George Blotkin references a song titled El Scorpio.
Rivers Cuomo dressed as Sebastian (wearing a white jumpsuit with an American flag and a name tag reading "Sebastian") during the Everything Will Be Alright in the End Tour and is credited as Sebastian in the tour program.[1] He also wore the outfit in the music video for Back to the Shack which, in keeping with the Astronaut theme, takes place on the surface of the Moon.
Bella
Bella is a character featured in the promotional material for Everything Will Be Alright in the End. She is a romantic interest of Sebastian. According to the album liner notes, she is portrayed by Kylie Kempster and is also portrayed by actress Amanda Tovah Rose in the teaser videos.
Belladonna
Belladonna (sometimes rendered as "Bella Donna") is one of three thematic groups of songs (along with Patriarchia and The Panopticon Artist)that comprise Weezer's 2014 album Everything Will Be Alright in the End. The word "Belladonna" is a name of Italian origin, meaning "beautiful woman". The songs under this category pertain to Rivers Cuomo's relationships with women. The characters Cleo and Bella from the album's promotional material and meta-narrative, are linked with this theme.
The six songs that comprise this group are:
- "Go Away"
- "Lonely Girl"
- "Cleopatra"
- "Ain't Got Nobody"
- "Da Vinci"
- "Return to Ithaka"
Claire
Claire is a character featured in the promotional material for Everything Will Be Alright in the End. She appears in the teaser videos portrayed by actress Mhairi Morrison (credited in the liner notes and teaser videos as "Mhari Steenbock").
Claire is the mother of Sebastian, and appears in the video EWBAITE 10 "Eulogy For A Rock Band when Sebastian announces that he's moving to Los Angeles. She is credited as simply "Mom" in the teaser videos, and as "Claire" in the album's liner notes. In the liner notes, the character is additionally credited to Colette Turner and Stephanie Farrar. Nothing additional is known about her character, but as Sebastian is meant to be an analogue for Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo, Claire is, presumably, meant to be analogous to Cuomo's actual mother Beverly Shoenberger. This is reinforced by the script, released in 2020, wherein Claire, described as a receptionist at the Harvard science building where Laffoley works, marries and gives birth to Sebastian in 1970 before Laffoley leaves the family in 1973. Rivers Cuomo was also born in 1970, and his father left the family when Rivers was very young.
Cleo
Cleo is a character from the 2014 Weezer concept album Everything Will Be Alright in the End. She appears in the teaser videos portrayed by actress Allison Volk.
Cleo is an executive of Electric Records alongside George Blotkin. When the two meet with Sebastian, she smiles at him. It is implied that the two have some manner of relationship. She is implied to be older and more experienced than the character Bella. The album's liner notes pair her photograph with text that describes her as "female" and "about 30". An adjacent line of text reads "I can show you how it's really done". During the meeting, Blotkin and Cleo present Sebastian with a stack of mysterious books. Blotkin promises that they have "the most powerful and modern tools to guarantee [his] exposure to the greatest number of people." Sometime, possibly around 1994, Sebastian rejects their help, telling them to "enjoy their headphones", before taking the books and storming out. Also in the teaser videos, Sebastian's car is seen burning, as is a photograph of Cleo. The mysterious books are later seen perfectly intact in the burned-out car. The character is represented on the album by the song "Cleopatra", a song listed under the theme Belladonna. The song describes a woman whose beauty has faded. Regarding the album itself an a Rolling Stone interview, Cuomo said "The overarching theme of the album is an increased awareness of the impermanence of everything we took for granted."[2]
EYD
EYD is an insignia appearing in the liner notes for Everything Will Be Alright in the End as well as on official merchandise from that album cycle. The insignia appears on the back of the album's liner notes, following a line that reads "Transmissions received and sorted by Joe Laffoley, 1965, 4th level literati."
Though never officially confirmed, the acronym likely stands for "Except You Die". During the coalescence of earlier concepts (The Sea Opera, Ecce Homo) into the concept that would ultimately manifest as EWBAITE, the working concept title was Everything Will Be Alright in the End Except You Die.
There exists an alternate cover for Everything Will Be Alright in the End that is viewable as the thumbnails for certain files from Alone XI: The EWBAITE Years. This cover is identical to the final cover, but with white text in the bottom-right stating "Everything will be alright in the end except you die".
In 2020, a user asked Cuomo about the meaning of "EYD" via Riverchat, to which Cuomo responded "Greek tragedy,"[3] adding "if you turn up the album real [loud] at the end you can hear me say it."[4] Indeed, Cuomo can be heard whispering the words "except you die" at around 4:11 in the song "Foolish Father".
Futurescope
The Futurescope is an oscilloscope-like device found by Joe Laffoley in the basement of a Harvard University Building. The Futurescope transmits video and imagery from the future, which Laffoley studies in hopes of answering his three burning questions: How to find a girl, how to find fame, and how to find his father.
The three final tracks on EWBAITE ("The Waste Land," "Anonymous," and "Return to Ithaka") comprise a suite titled "The Futurescope Trilogy."
George Blotkin
George Blotkin is a character from the promotional material for Everything Will Be Alright in the End. He appears in the teaser videos portrayed by Jeff Greenberg.
George Blotkin is an executive of Electric Records alongside Cleo. During the meeting, Blotkin claims to be a fan of "the deeper cuts, like "El Scorpio". Blotkin and Cleo then present Sebastian with a stack of mysterious books. Blotkin promises that they have "the most powerful and modern tools to guarantee [his] exposure to the greatest number of people." Sometime, possibly around 1994, Sebastian rejects their help, telling them to "enjoy their headphones", before taking the books and storming out. Also in the teaser videos, Sebastian's car is seen burning, as is a photograph of Cleo. The mysterious books are later seen perfectly intact in the burned-out car.
Joe Laffoley
Joe Laffoley (also spelled as "Joe Lafolley" in the liner notes) is a character from the promotional material for Everything Will Be Alright in the End. He appears in the teaser videos portrayed by actor Colin Martin. Artist Johannes Gamble (who previously directed the music video for I'm Your Daddy) is also credited as portraying the character, as is Weezer bassist Scott Shriner, who provides the vocal clip "I'm proud of you, son" heard at the beginning of "Ain't Got Nobody".
The teaser videos for EWBAITE show Laffoley, an employee of some kind of facility in 1965, observing visual transmissions from various periods in the future through a machine resembling an oscilloscope (Futurescope named on the album). The script for the teaser videos describes Laffoley as a "22-year-old (Harvard) University scientist prodigy" who constructed the Futurescope in the basement of a Harvard University building to answer three burning questions: How he can find a girl, how he can find fame, and how he can find his father. The transmissions largely center around a younger man named Sebastian at various points in his life, from childhood to growing up and becoming the lead musician in a band called The Astronauts. Laffoley is seen taking extensive notes and behaving secretively, trying to hide his findings at various points, continuing his research in secret even as his superiors cut the power to his research laboratory. In the final teaser video, Laffoley observes Sebastian winning an award for Album of the Year. Sebastian then dedicates the album to his father: Joe Laffoley. Realizing finally that Sebastian is his son, Laffoley smiles to himself, as the machine's power is cut off and he is carried away by men in white suits.
Joe's fate in the videos is deliberately left ambiguous. An EWBAITE-themed t-shirt designed by comic arist Alec Longstreth in 2014 features a gravestone listing Laffoley's date of death as 1965. The script, released online in 2020, mentions that Laffoley was fired from Harvard in 1968 and met Claire, a receptionist in the science building, in 1970, the year that Sebastian is born. The script adds that Laffoley then "becomes a nobody" in Lexington, Massachusetts and, wanting more in life, leaves the family in 1973 (around the same time that Rivers Cuomo's own parents, Frank and Beverly, divorced), before finding a meditation center in [[Wikipedia:Twentynine_Palms,_California|Twentynine Palms, California]. The ending of both the script and videos imply that Laffoley has recently passed at the time The Astronauts win the award for Album of the Year.
The liner notes for the album feature a photo of Laffoley (accompanying the Patriarchia section), with the back of the liner notes reading "Transmissions received and sorted by Joe Laffoley, 1965, 4th level literati." followed by the EYD insignia.
Joe Laffoley is almost certainly named after artist Paul Laffoley. Rivers Cuomo, with the release of the demo compilation Alone XI: The EWBAITE Years in 2020, included photos of Paul Laffoley's works among other images from which he drew inspiration for the album, including an album cover mockup for EWBAITE based on one of Laffoley's works.
During shows on the Everything Will Be Alright in the End Tour, musician Daniel Brummel, who accompanied the band on guitar and keyboards, dressed up as Laffoley (with Cuomo in costume as Sebastian).
The Panopticon Artist
The Panopticon Artist is one of three thematic groups (along with Patriarchia and Belladonna) of songs that comprise Weezer's 2014 album Everything Will Be Alright in the End. A panopticon is a type of prison structure designed by English philosopher Jeremy Bentham in the late 18th century, in which all inmates are able to be observed by a single watchman without being able to discern when they are being watched, thus enforcing power without the need to actually assert it. The philosopher Michel Foucault named his social theory Panopticism after this concept.
The three songs grouped under this theme are:
Patriarchia
Patriarchia is one of three thematic groups (along with The Panopticon Artist and Belladonna) of songs that comprise Weezer's 2014 album Everything Will Be Alright in the End. The word "Patriarchia" is the Latin word for "patriarch", meaning a father or father figure. Fatherhood is a recurring theme on the album, both literally and figuratively.
The four songs grouped under this theme are:
Sebastian
Sebastian is a character from the promotional material for Everything Will Be Alright in the End. He is the son of Joe Laffoley and Claire, and the lead musician in a band called The Astronauts. According to the album's liner notes, he is portrayed by Clyde Field, as well as in the teaser videos portrayed by actors Zach Kanner (as an adult) and Lucas Martin (as a child). His life and appearance appears to be largely analogous to that of Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo.
As a child in 1976, Sebastian dreams of a monster. He tells his mother of his nightmares and she assuages him: "Go back to sleep, honey. Everything will be alright in the end." On November 2, 1985, he leaves home and moves to Los Angeles. In 1986, a bunch of other boys pick on him and throw him into a dumpster. At some point, he forms the band The Astronauts. Sometime later, possibly around 1991, he meets with Electric Records executives George Blotkin and Cleo, who give him a stack of mysterious books. Blotkin promises that they have "the most powerful and modern tools to guarantee [his] exposure to the greatest number of people." Sometime, possibly around 1994, Sebastian rejects their help, telling them to "enjoy [their] headphones", before taking the books and storming out. At some unknown date, The Astronauts win an award for Album of the Year, which Sebastian dedicates to his late father, Joe Laffoley. At some date, he becomes romantically involved with Bella, but they later get into a fight. At some point, Sebastian car breaks down or crashes. The Astronauts' presumably sophomore album, titled Help Me, went on to be a critical failure, and features a song titled "My Body Pain".
Rivers Cuomo dressed in character as Sebastian (wearing a white jumpsuit with an American flag and a name tag reading "Sebastian") during the Everything Will Be Alright in the End Tour and is credited as Sebastian in the tour program[1] He also wore the outfit in the music video for "Back to the Shack."
"Tell Me What You Want," a standalone single originally recorded in contention for Van Weezer, was initially written from Sebastian's perspective.[citation needed]
See also
- Everything Will Be Alright in the End
- Everything Will Be Alright in the End - Script
- Everything Will Be Alright in the End - Teasers
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 File:EWBAITE_program_inside.jpg
- ↑ Vozick-Levinson, Simon. "11 Things You Learn Hanging Out With Weezer" Rolling Stone. 4 September 2014.
- ↑ File:Riverchat_20200803-201851.jpg
- ↑ File:Riverchat_20200803-202134_20200805095636877.jpg
