that seems like a fitting title to my autobiography. i think that the subtitle then would just be a comic book sound effect like "ziff!" or "bing!"
well, that would actually be the emo version of my autobio. the happy version would be like "here's your dream job and a cultural heritage that gives you every possible advantage over the vast majority of people living on earth: playing video games all day is fun: the ben bunting II, esq. story: why did you buy this: no, really, i'm seriously asking: part trois".
that's a lot of colons, but if there's one grammatically correct way to represent how my thought process works, it's colons.
i finally woke up today feeling not-like-death for the first time in recent memory; i can move my head from side-to-side without pain, i can swallow without pain, i can even take medicine and not register any decrease in the amount of pain i'm currently feeling (which i think means i'm not feeling any pain). so after my six-day rendezvous with learning what it feels like to be really old, i fell asleep at 1030 last night and then woke up promptly at 420am. then i spent like four hours reading pointless shit on the internet because there really wasn't anything else to do. i meant to watch TV on hulu until i fell back to sleep, but somehow reading the entire DC superman mythos on wikipedia turned out to be far more interesting, and by the time i cross-linked my way all the way over to the hubble space telescope it was 8am and i was cracking open my morning chocolate cereal and diet coke combo.
i think the plan is to replace the mazda entire car-limbic system...or something. i was planning on replacing the timing belt and the clutch, but upon removal of the rotors yesterday, cracks were found (passive voice R0X0RZ) and thusly the rotors will probably be replaced as well, so as to avoid 70mph incidents involving me hitting my brakes and my car responding by destroying my front tires and/or splitting in half down the middle and/or shooting fire from the front wheel wells while i continue to travel 70mph. the good news is that my suspicion regarding that weird, ghetto-ass rattling the car has been making for months were confirmed in the form of a loose coat-hangery, lame-ass fastener that was supposed to be holding my exhaust system in place, but was doing a shitty job of that while doing an awesome job at making a shitload of noise. curt assure me this is easily fixable by welding.
i'm convinced on some level that spending the necessary many-hundreds-of-dollars ("spending" here is a euphemism for "putting it on credit") on these repairs will somehow make my car into this insanely fancy super-car that'll be able to all fly and shoot missles and shit. boy am i going to be disappointed when i'm way the fuck in the hole again and all i have to show for it is a car that's marginally functional as opposed to borderline broken.
still thinking about that one unnamed secret girl again. starting to think that i'm just never going to be able to manifest my positive relationship intentions towards anyone in a way that's not just totally fucked up and weird and potentially creepy and/or crazy. i'd say more, but i don't really feel like it at the moment; more fun to just beat myself up about it.
god, i'm going crazy with the slashified conjunctions today.
Nov 28, 2008
Nov 27, 2008
six days later, vacation finally starts
after six days of simultaneously working and on/off being sick, i'm in seattle...just hanging out and getting ready for some car surgery.
good times. more later.
good times. more later.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY FENDER!
the blogfest has been raging for 13 months here on blogger. i'm much happier and much less emo than i was over there on ol' livejournal.
all in all, i've been blogging for...almost four years now. bizarre.
the interwebs!
all in all, i've been blogging for...almost four years now. bizarre.
the interwebs!
Nov 26, 2008
the record-breaker gets broken.
sad, evil days in fake san francisco.
partway through a back-and-forth game against rival seattle, bunting was sacked hard and was taken off the field with a broken tailbone. needless to say, he's done for the season, which sucks because he was putting up numbers that were easily better that his previous six seasons (highlighted by the fact that he got voted into the pro bowl before getting injured, four weeks before the season actually ended).
the team pretty much fell apart after that, and backup QB jordan was decimated by the seattle defense. the niners went on to lose 35-28. bowes was also kept to 50 yards on the ground in the snowstorm.
the now 12-2 niners next faced the buccaneers, a team that not too long ago elimated them from the conference finals. this time, despite 2 fumbles, 2 interceptions, a missed field goal, and giving up a defensive touchdown, the niners just could not suck enough to lose to the buccanneers. early on, both teams had a few ludicrously obvious chances to score that somehow went awry, and then finally late in the first quarter, michael faulk, the bucs' QB, fumbled and it was run back by the 9000 pound lineman harold minter for a touchdown.
on the very next play, faulk threw an interception (one of many), but the niners weren't able to turn it into any points as stewart (who recently made 4 50+ yard field goals) missed a 29 yarder.
up 17-0 early in the second half, the niners made what was surprisingly their biggest mistake of the game: knocking out faulk and forcing the bucs to put in their second-string QB. he turned out to be approximately 19 times better than faulk, and got the bucs to within 3 points, 20-17, before the niners found the end zone again.
the bucs would score one more time with the clock running out, but would fail to recover the onside kick. the somewhat battered niners (11 injuries in the last two games, with 6 of them coming among the secondary) went on to win 27-24.
partway through a back-and-forth game against rival seattle, bunting was sacked hard and was taken off the field with a broken tailbone. needless to say, he's done for the season, which sucks because he was putting up numbers that were easily better that his previous six seasons (highlighted by the fact that he got voted into the pro bowl before getting injured, four weeks before the season actually ended).
the team pretty much fell apart after that, and backup QB jordan was decimated by the seattle defense. the niners went on to lose 35-28. bowes was also kept to 50 yards on the ground in the snowstorm.
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| From Other and Posts |
the now 12-2 niners next faced the buccaneers, a team that not too long ago elimated them from the conference finals. this time, despite 2 fumbles, 2 interceptions, a missed field goal, and giving up a defensive touchdown, the niners just could not suck enough to lose to the buccanneers. early on, both teams had a few ludicrously obvious chances to score that somehow went awry, and then finally late in the first quarter, michael faulk, the bucs' QB, fumbled and it was run back by the 9000 pound lineman harold minter for a touchdown.
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| From Other and Posts |
on the very next play, faulk threw an interception (one of many), but the niners weren't able to turn it into any points as stewart (who recently made 4 50+ yard field goals) missed a 29 yarder.
 |
| From Other and Posts |
up 17-0 early in the second half, the niners made what was surprisingly their biggest mistake of the game: knocking out faulk and forcing the bucs to put in their second-string QB. he turned out to be approximately 19 times better than faulk, and got the bucs to within 3 points, 20-17, before the niners found the end zone again.
the bucs would score one more time with the clock running out, but would fail to recover the onside kick. the somewhat battered niners (11 injuries in the last two games, with 6 of them coming among the secondary) went on to win 27-24.
Nov 24, 2008
sudaFED
WELCOME TO WARP ZONE!
no WONDER they only sell this shit over the counter nowadays.
who needs meth?
no WONDER they only sell this shit over the counter nowadays.
who needs meth?
what i learned in school (on the first day of winter 2008)
1. space is cold. the air is not breathy there. i would not like to be in space without a metalfoil robot face-hat. even though the earth is damn pretty up thar.
2. when you freeze yourself out of your car without a coat, the next morning you wake up sick as fuck. then you want your eyes to liquefy for no reason other than if they do, the metal rats chewing their way around behind them will fall out onto the floor and you can stomp on them. well, you could if you could see them. but you can't cuz your eyes just fucking liquefied. damn.
3. pizza cures most things, but not all things.
4. taco bell cures some of the things that pizza cures, and some other things, but still not all things.
5. psuedophedrine doesn't cure anything, but damn does it make you feel like it does.
6. writing songs is hard when you're trying to do schoolwork. this makes me sad. i can't wait to sing over xmas. hopefully a lot.
7. between now and march, i should wear pretty all my clothes pretty much everywhere.
8. shower water hurts hitting your skin when you're sick.
9. i think sadly that tomorrow might be a wash. someone find me a hotel to stay in in SF in march. and read a bunch of theory and take good notes.
10. i probably should practice hugging more. it's not fair to expect from other people what you're too much of a crazy to give to them first.
11. eleven is a bad number to end on.
12. one more down. sudafed, that is.
13. much better. i have learned my lesson re: entering into relationships based on neediness, and now i at least like to think i know better. that said, being sick and tired and quiet and lonely and so done with fucking thinking about theory for a few hours makes me wish i had a relationship-type excuse to get like a high-five and maybe a chance to see someone smile at me in that way that blows your socks off even when you just want to blow someone's head off. then suddenly everything's cool for a bit...at the mere expense of...what is it, like 32 face muscles or something? sheesh.
i have a particular girl in mind at the moment, but it doesn't matter because even though she's totally badass i'm 112 percent sure that if she knew who she was (or something, you know what i mean) she would probably kick my ass...not in a mean way but just because i'm pretty sure her being that girl for me wouldn't work out for her because from her viewpoint i bet we don't fit together in that particular way...not because of anything negative or dislike-ful, but just because sometimes people don't see other people in the way person 2 might want them to see them in...uhhh...what?
at least i know what i meant.
anyway, the mere thought of her kicking my ass for writing about her kicking my ass had amused me to the point of...umm...LOL'ing, as the kids say. even if it was followed by extreme rib-area pain and a fit of coughing.
it's wild that we choose to give other people so much power over our feelings and then get our feelings hurt when they don't use that power the way we want them to. what the fuck is that?
anyway, i'm cool with no mystery-girl, i suppose. nothing like an enormous amount of pizza, flu medicine, guitars, 13 cardinals shows on my hard drive, a week of thanksgiving break, and an actual bed (which will someday experience being slept in) to negate most of the no-hugging-ness.
i've said too much. this is a loooooooong 13.
13b.eleven. none of this should be construed as "bitching". i am pretty fucking content, and continue to be, as is a pretty easy thing to be for someone who doesn't expect or want to be rewarded for his misguided and potentially destructive attempts to enlighten and en-happy other people's lives. hope i'm doing my job. take it easy out there.
2. when you freeze yourself out of your car without a coat, the next morning you wake up sick as fuck. then you want your eyes to liquefy for no reason other than if they do, the metal rats chewing their way around behind them will fall out onto the floor and you can stomp on them. well, you could if you could see them. but you can't cuz your eyes just fucking liquefied. damn.
3. pizza cures most things, but not all things.
4. taco bell cures some of the things that pizza cures, and some other things, but still not all things.
5. psuedophedrine doesn't cure anything, but damn does it make you feel like it does.
6. writing songs is hard when you're trying to do schoolwork. this makes me sad. i can't wait to sing over xmas. hopefully a lot.
7. between now and march, i should wear pretty all my clothes pretty much everywhere.
8. shower water hurts hitting your skin when you're sick.
9. i think sadly that tomorrow might be a wash. someone find me a hotel to stay in in SF in march. and read a bunch of theory and take good notes.
10. i probably should practice hugging more. it's not fair to expect from other people what you're too much of a crazy to give to them first.
11. eleven is a bad number to end on.
12. one more down. sudafed, that is.
13. much better. i have learned my lesson re: entering into relationships based on neediness, and now i at least like to think i know better. that said, being sick and tired and quiet and lonely and so done with fucking thinking about theory for a few hours makes me wish i had a relationship-type excuse to get like a high-five and maybe a chance to see someone smile at me in that way that blows your socks off even when you just want to blow someone's head off. then suddenly everything's cool for a bit...at the mere expense of...what is it, like 32 face muscles or something? sheesh.
i have a particular girl in mind at the moment, but it doesn't matter because even though she's totally badass i'm 112 percent sure that if she knew who she was (or something, you know what i mean) she would probably kick my ass...not in a mean way but just because i'm pretty sure her being that girl for me wouldn't work out for her because from her viewpoint i bet we don't fit together in that particular way...not because of anything negative or dislike-ful, but just because sometimes people don't see other people in the way person 2 might want them to see them in...uhhh...what?
at least i know what i meant.
anyway, the mere thought of her kicking my ass for writing about her kicking my ass had amused me to the point of...umm...LOL'ing, as the kids say. even if it was followed by extreme rib-area pain and a fit of coughing.
it's wild that we choose to give other people so much power over our feelings and then get our feelings hurt when they don't use that power the way we want them to. what the fuck is that?
anyway, i'm cool with no mystery-girl, i suppose. nothing like an enormous amount of pizza, flu medicine, guitars, 13 cardinals shows on my hard drive, a week of thanksgiving break, and an actual bed (which will someday experience being slept in) to negate most of the no-hugging-ness.
i've said too much. this is a loooooooong 13.
13b.eleven. none of this should be construed as "bitching". i am pretty fucking content, and continue to be, as is a pretty easy thing to be for someone who doesn't expect or want to be rewarded for his misguided and potentially destructive attempts to enlighten and en-happy other people's lives. hope i'm doing my job. take it easy out there.
Nov 23, 2008
big wheels keep on turnin'
something happened to me. i don't know exactly what caused it, or what the results are/were, but i can trace its trajectory like a finger trail on a frozen window, a message left behind that's meaning ices back over while you're trying to decipher it.
it started around halloween, and it ended this past wednesday night when i was sitting in my chair in my office, adjusting to being back at work after a short week and before a week's vacation. i suddenly realized that somehow the previous 2 1/2 or so weeks had somehow stretched themselves over pretty much a lifetime. do you ever have those periods of time that don't seem significant when you're in them, and then when you look back even moments after they end, you're suddenly pretty sure that the "you" you were before you started is almost already, inexplicably, unrecognizeable?
there's a lot about pre-november me that doesn't make sense to me anymore. this wasn't a conscious decision, it wasn't brought about by intentional reflection or adjustment or dissastisfaction. i just suddenly became someone else. it's sort of scary, in the sense that i feel like i'm not sure in a lot of ways suddenly what's important to me or what i'm capable of. i feel like luke skywalker after he cuts off faux-vader's hand on dagobah. something happened, i changed somehow, i'm not sure how i feel about it other than that i know i can't go back because i don't know how i left in the first place.
confused? yeah, me too.
keepin' on.
it started around halloween, and it ended this past wednesday night when i was sitting in my chair in my office, adjusting to being back at work after a short week and before a week's vacation. i suddenly realized that somehow the previous 2 1/2 or so weeks had somehow stretched themselves over pretty much a lifetime. do you ever have those periods of time that don't seem significant when you're in them, and then when you look back even moments after they end, you're suddenly pretty sure that the "you" you were before you started is almost already, inexplicably, unrecognizeable?
there's a lot about pre-november me that doesn't make sense to me anymore. this wasn't a conscious decision, it wasn't brought about by intentional reflection or adjustment or dissastisfaction. i just suddenly became someone else. it's sort of scary, in the sense that i feel like i'm not sure in a lot of ways suddenly what's important to me or what i'm capable of. i feel like luke skywalker after he cuts off faux-vader's hand on dagobah. something happened, i changed somehow, i'm not sure how i feel about it other than that i know i can't go back because i don't know how i left in the first place.
confused? yeah, me too.
keepin' on.
thy valor shall be determined by the length of thine shanks, longshanks.
i'd like to say we destroyed the cardinals. the fact is, we barely survived with our lives.
both teams played great defense, but the niners took an early 9-0 lead on three matt stewart field goals. of 51, 52, and 54 yards. yeah. that's got to be some kind of record.
unfortunately, one play after this play:
the cardinals intercepted mr. bunting and got a touchdown a play later. this would be a recurring theme, as they intercepted bunting 3 times. the second time set up an 86 yard touchdown reception that made it 13-9 (on a missed 2-point conversion, in case you were wondering).
fortunately, the niners had two more field goals up their sleeves, kicking the last one with a minute on the clock and then intercepting the cardinals' QB to keep the score at 15-13 as time ran out. this might be the first and only time the niners won a game without getting into the end zone.
this might be the first time lasers came out of my fingers instead of mustard.
just making sure you're paying attention.
both teams played great defense, but the niners took an early 9-0 lead on three matt stewart field goals. of 51, 52, and 54 yards. yeah. that's got to be some kind of record.
unfortunately, one play after this play:
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| From Other and Posts |
the cardinals intercepted mr. bunting and got a touchdown a play later. this would be a recurring theme, as they intercepted bunting 3 times. the second time set up an 86 yard touchdown reception that made it 13-9 (on a missed 2-point conversion, in case you were wondering).
fortunately, the niners had two more field goals up their sleeves, kicking the last one with a minute on the clock and then intercepting the cardinals' QB to keep the score at 15-13 as time ran out. this might be the first and only time the niners won a game without getting into the end zone.
this might be the first time lasers came out of my fingers instead of mustard.
just making sure you're paying attention.
photo flop
i switched out the picture on my music-player-widget thing from that same old tired picture of myself playing frankenmary on a bench to a vector-drawn rendering of that same old picture...which is much, much cooler and better and will make a more positive impression on my massive fanbase.
unfortunately, i either did something wrong or reverbnation takes hours to get their cookie-updating shit together because the widget pic ain't changin'. life is tough.
unfortunately, i either did something wrong or reverbnation takes hours to get their cookie-updating shit together because the widget pic ain't changin'. life is tough.
Nov 22, 2008
the floor. is hard.
something about sleeping on the floor seems to precipitate not only sore necks, shoulders, and possibly broken ribs, but also existential crises.
hmm...i have a 500 dollar bed. maybe i should start using it.
sadly i'm wired now, but i'm stocked with shitty movies to keep hair-pulling at bay until unconsciousness stops pouting in the corner and starts talking to me again.
grading tomorrow! w00t!
hmm...i have a 500 dollar bed. maybe i should start using it.
sadly i'm wired now, but i'm stocked with shitty movies to keep hair-pulling at bay until unconsciousness stops pouting in the corner and starts talking to me again.
grading tomorrow! w00t!
niners keep on rollin'
i have no pictures for any of these games, and i don't even really have very clear memories of them; a symptom of brutally cramming a game into my schedule here and there when i should have been sleeping after like 16 hours of work. sorry.
anyway, the eagles fell, as always with difficulty, 42-39. next up were the bengals, who made a fairly sad showing of themselves, but because bunting left the QB post early in the second quarter with knee bursitis and wesley jordan filled in by mostly getting sacked and throwing the ball to the other team, the game ended up being pretty close. 31-24 was the final, and it was 24-24 with about eight minutes left. seven of those eight minutes were a pretty intense back-and-forth midfield battle more reminiscent of a soccer game than a football game. then wesley dumped a pass over the secondary's head, and raymond scholl caught it and ran 80 yards for the winning touchdown. is it a coincidence that his name is one letter away from "school"? no. it's not. last to get mutilated were the steelers. this one was fairly sad until the end, the steelers doing a lot of nothing and finding themselves down 38-14 starting the fourth quarter. sadly, the "madden engine" kicked in, making the niners suck ass and allowing the steelers to get two quick scores. fortunately, 38-28 was the closest they would get, as they spent the last five minutes blowing deep-pass opportunities and getting their QB sacked.
10-1, next up is the cardinals, who we've already beaten 37-15 once.
bowes has 1433 yard with five games left...that means he needs slightly over 100 yards a game to break the 2000 yard mark for the third time in seven seasons. better get him some massive buckets of good and plentys.
anyway, the eagles fell, as always with difficulty, 42-39. next up were the bengals, who made a fairly sad showing of themselves, but because bunting left the QB post early in the second quarter with knee bursitis and wesley jordan filled in by mostly getting sacked and throwing the ball to the other team, the game ended up being pretty close. 31-24 was the final, and it was 24-24 with about eight minutes left. seven of those eight minutes were a pretty intense back-and-forth midfield battle more reminiscent of a soccer game than a football game. then wesley dumped a pass over the secondary's head, and raymond scholl caught it and ran 80 yards for the winning touchdown. is it a coincidence that his name is one letter away from "school"? no. it's not. last to get mutilated were the steelers. this one was fairly sad until the end, the steelers doing a lot of nothing and finding themselves down 38-14 starting the fourth quarter. sadly, the "madden engine" kicked in, making the niners suck ass and allowing the steelers to get two quick scores. fortunately, 38-28 was the closest they would get, as they spent the last five minutes blowing deep-pass opportunities and getting their QB sacked.
10-1, next up is the cardinals, who we've already beaten 37-15 once.
bowes has 1433 yard with five games left...that means he needs slightly over 100 yards a game to break the 2000 yard mark for the third time in seven seasons. better get him some massive buckets of good and plentys.
Nov 21, 2008
top 10 reasons lists are stupid
here's a pretty thing.
read it. love it. question the stupidity of lists written by people who have nothing to say.
while we're at it, buy me ice cream and bring it to my office.
is this thing on?
read it. love it. question the stupidity of lists written by people who have nothing to say.
while we're at it, buy me ice cream and bring it to my office.
is this thing on?
cardinology, pt. 1
finally got a chance to sit down and listen to cardinology tonight, like fourteen years after it was released. i like it, i think. i'm going to have to feel it out for awhile like pretty much all RA albums post rock n roll.
more to come as cardinology-related thoughts develop.
more to come as cardinology-related thoughts develop.
Nov 20, 2008
Nov 18, 2008
i secretly lurve chris cornell
and i feel okay admitting it now. after watching casino royale this past weekend, in preparation for seeing quantum of solace (which was teh awesomes), i can now safely claim that not only does casino have the best bond intro sequence i've seen, but the chris cornell song used as the title theme (and then elsewhere throughout the movie) kicks bottomless wells of ass.
Nov 16, 2008
annihilate/make a pizza
i'm totally sideways
or maybe the room is sideways and i'm rightways
it sure doesn't feel like it though
i have a bad moment;
i don't really like it when suddenly i'm drunk and i don't remember why
not a good idea to not do it for a good reason
but here we are anyways
i just went on a walk around pullman
and there were a few people out
but largely they avoided me
this one girl was scared i was going to hurt her puppy
she didn't act like it but i could tell
i would never hurt a puppy or a girl on purpose
but i still don't blame her from running from me
i would too sometimes if i wasn't stuck to me
i thought about buying food from IGA
but it seemed too cliche; like here comes the drunk
fucker at 4am to get shitty food and sleep off his stupid decisions
luckily i have cool friends who will let me make an ass of myself and
be all like everything is normal tomorrow
but i put myself in a bad place and i'm glad the damage was minimal
i'm working on cutting out caffeine and i stopped smoking
so i keep thinking this is a temporary adjustment but it's been like
three weeks...i'm a bit scared of overdrinking a bit
and maybe turning back into my old self
and maybe hurting people...i don't mind so much hurting myself
i can handle it if i'm asking for it, which i am
but my new friends are badass and shouldn't have to deal with old baggage
hopefully that's not what this is
hopefully it's just me not knowing how to have fun yet and trying to learn
because that would be an awesome skill to have
so i'll keep my eyes open and hope that's what it is
and we'll find out soon enough
because i'll either really smile with it
or implode
and either way it'll be a pretty fucking clear answer
that's money, honey.
or maybe the room is sideways and i'm rightways
it sure doesn't feel like it though
i have a bad moment;
i don't really like it when suddenly i'm drunk and i don't remember why
not a good idea to not do it for a good reason
but here we are anyways
i just went on a walk around pullman
and there were a few people out
but largely they avoided me
this one girl was scared i was going to hurt her puppy
she didn't act like it but i could tell
i would never hurt a puppy or a girl on purpose
but i still don't blame her from running from me
i would too sometimes if i wasn't stuck to me
i thought about buying food from IGA
but it seemed too cliche; like here comes the drunk
fucker at 4am to get shitty food and sleep off his stupid decisions
luckily i have cool friends who will let me make an ass of myself and
be all like everything is normal tomorrow
but i put myself in a bad place and i'm glad the damage was minimal
i'm working on cutting out caffeine and i stopped smoking
so i keep thinking this is a temporary adjustment but it's been like
three weeks...i'm a bit scared of overdrinking a bit
and maybe turning back into my old self
and maybe hurting people...i don't mind so much hurting myself
i can handle it if i'm asking for it, which i am
but my new friends are badass and shouldn't have to deal with old baggage
hopefully that's not what this is
hopefully it's just me not knowing how to have fun yet and trying to learn
because that would be an awesome skill to have
so i'll keep my eyes open and hope that's what it is
and we'll find out soon enough
because i'll either really smile with it
or implode
and either way it'll be a pretty fucking clear answer
that's money, honey.
I'M SORRY, I AM AN ASSHOLE AND I DESERVE TO BE DESTROYED
yeah, like it says up there.
but really, you have a grill in the bed of your F-350? are you even trying to be someone? that's so cliche it's like the rest of your life is just layed out like the answer key to a sudoku puzzle. brains are cool, get one. even though you will be shit-sideways and alone in my apartment if you try.
fuck. i'm such an idiot. self-loathing begins NOW. please stand by for download of stupidity modules.
DOWNLOAD FINISHED.
waaaaaaaah.
i should delete this in the morning, when i can see and feel again.
gah.
but really, you have a grill in the bed of your F-350? are you even trying to be someone? that's so cliche it's like the rest of your life is just layed out like the answer key to a sudoku puzzle. brains are cool, get one. even though you will be shit-sideways and alone in my apartment if you try.
fuck. i'm such an idiot. self-loathing begins NOW. please stand by for download of stupidity modules.
DOWNLOAD FINISHED.
waaaaaaaah.
i should delete this in the morning, when i can see and feel again.
gah.
Nov 14, 2008
mike prewett is awesome.
this guy just sent me all of his music, including what appears to be a stellar 2-disc mixtape (with liner notes) for no reason. other than that he's awesome.
couldn't have been better timing either (since i'm obviously frustrated enough right now to kill a rhinoceros with my bare hands). i am currently listening to an actual, official-looking copy of "the becky adams ep", one of my favorite albums of 2007, and it's excellent, still. it's also nice to have a copy of "leaving" to replace the copy i have that's scratched to shit from carrying it around in a cracked CD case inside my acoustic guitar case for like a year when i was road-tripping from washington to ohio and back.
good times.
couldn't have been better timing either (since i'm obviously frustrated enough right now to kill a rhinoceros with my bare hands). i am currently listening to an actual, official-looking copy of "the becky adams ep", one of my favorite albums of 2007, and it's excellent, still. it's also nice to have a copy of "leaving" to replace the copy i have that's scratched to shit from carrying it around in a cracked CD case inside my acoustic guitar case for like a year when i was road-tripping from washington to ohio and back.
good times.
10:05am. still pissed.
i don't feel any better. fortunately, they're spraying that sealant that releases airborne silicon (read: carcinogenic) on the sidewalks again, so soon i'll either be dead or high. or both.
impotently spraying sad all over teh intarwebs
so, 29 hours away from the beginning of the festival, after a week of preparation (including an awesomely fun and simultaneously reassuring 8-hour drive-everywhere-and-buy-things session tonight), and after a month of planning ahead to make time to actually make the film on saturday morning/night...apple postpones the festival until "after the holidays".
ARRRRGH. so fucking frustrated. i don't usually write on here just to vent. it's usually, if it's venting at all, venting for a purpose. i don't have a purpose right now; i'm just fucking angry.
how the hell do you suddenly realize that you're having logistical problems setting up your worldwide internet film festival a day before it starts? especially if you're APPLE?
what the hell?!
it's been really fun getting ready for this, and though i absolutely love making movies and would probably throw my awesome and rewarding career as a teacher away in a second if i had a chance to make them regularly, i'm most disappointed because i feel like i've gotten to know a few people really well during this process and have begun to think of them as really good friends...and i was really looking forward to slogging it out with them this weekend. instead, now, it'll be back to the grind as usual all weekend, my next justifiable break coming whenever they decide to reschedule the festival for (january? march?)...that is assuming everyone will still be interested in participating by then (i sure will, but i can't speak for everyone else).
well i guess i have thanksgiving break and christmas break, but everyone (including me) scatters to the four winds at those times, so that doesn't really work so much for socializing.
our little "meeting" tonight was great and i was stoked about his film and the experience of making it. i guess the silver lining is that we'll have more time to prepare, to learn the ins and outs of final cut and camera-ing and whatnot...and i'm sure as it gets to be a few days from now and things return to normal the disappointment will disappear; it always does.
but right now i'm just really annoyed and i know the rest of the guys and gals are too, and that's even more annoying. this fucking sucks. i have to teach in five hours, so i guess i should go to bed. ugh.
ARRRRGH. so fucking frustrated. i don't usually write on here just to vent. it's usually, if it's venting at all, venting for a purpose. i don't have a purpose right now; i'm just fucking angry.
how the hell do you suddenly realize that you're having logistical problems setting up your worldwide internet film festival a day before it starts? especially if you're APPLE?
what the hell?!
it's been really fun getting ready for this, and though i absolutely love making movies and would probably throw my awesome and rewarding career as a teacher away in a second if i had a chance to make them regularly, i'm most disappointed because i feel like i've gotten to know a few people really well during this process and have begun to think of them as really good friends...and i was really looking forward to slogging it out with them this weekend. instead, now, it'll be back to the grind as usual all weekend, my next justifiable break coming whenever they decide to reschedule the festival for (january? march?)...that is assuming everyone will still be interested in participating by then (i sure will, but i can't speak for everyone else).
well i guess i have thanksgiving break and christmas break, but everyone (including me) scatters to the four winds at those times, so that doesn't really work so much for socializing.
our little "meeting" tonight was great and i was stoked about his film and the experience of making it. i guess the silver lining is that we'll have more time to prepare, to learn the ins and outs of final cut and camera-ing and whatnot...and i'm sure as it gets to be a few days from now and things return to normal the disappointment will disappear; it always does.
but right now i'm just really annoyed and i know the rest of the guys and gals are too, and that's even more annoying. this fucking sucks. i have to teach in five hours, so i guess i should go to bed. ugh.
Nov 12, 2008
neighbor of the beast
this was originally going to be post 667...get it?
then i got carried with all that picture garbage.
i'm wearing my awesome heavy-ass wool backpacking socks for the first time of the year tonight. i'm still putting all the pictures i take into a "fall 08" folder, but pretty soon i'm going to have to face up to that whole world-orbiting-the-sun thing and make a "winter 08" folder. that's cool. but it should snow. at least.
all the ahead-ed-ness i've built up working my ass off over the last ten weeks was pretty much frittered away this weekend. which is fine. but just funny. it was like i could only overachieve for so long and then i had to start underachieving for awhile. i cancelled class yesterday, and veteran's day cancelled class today. so i basically had a four-day weekend, and for a large part of that weekend i hung out with friends, went to bars, spent money i didn't have on dinners i wasn't hungry enough to justify, and basically rediscovered what it's like to enjoy being a part of something.
i also slept a lot. i'm always a little hesitant to get into the habit of sleeping too much, because it makes me really depressed, really quickly. especially during this time of the year when so many of the hours of the day are dark. but i didn't really have a choice this time...i didn't have to set an alarm for four days and on some level my body just sort of said "fuck this" and i ended up sleeping until 2 or 3 in the afternoon every day. i adjusted pretty well because it was necessary to, but i'm also glad i have to get up again tomorrow and get on a normal sleep schedule...just in time for the film festival on friday/saturday/sunday...
i spent the afternoon/evening at rico's with a few of the people and the professor from one of my grad seminars, then came back here to catch up on some of the work i should have been doing earlier in the weekend. i did actually clean the shit out of my apartment this weekend, which took most of a day but was something i really needed to do.
anyway, thanks in large part to my friend sarah i was able to avoid a pedagogy meltdown after i got home...and i've spent the rest of the night touching up this paper draft i'm supposed to turn in...right now. whew.
so i'm sitting here at the moment, and despite the happenings of the last few days and their awesomeness, i feel suddenly cold and quiet and shut-down and extremely lonely...well, lonely's not really the word...i guess "alone" is more appropriate. which is weird. because i'm less alone than i've probably been since i last lived with a bunch of friends way back when. but this is what always seems to happen when i spend a bunch of time with people and enjoy myself: when it's over, my immediate, unintentiona response is to feel completely abandoned.
i think that's probably why for so many years i was (i like to this "was" instead of "am") mostly a loner...when i'm alone all the time, it sort of makes me an antisocial wanker and life is sort of boring and doesn't have much of a point outside of selfishness/self-indulgence, but then when i'm not a loner and try to really engage with people, i just keep wanting to do it more and more and it seems like a never reach a point where the cessation of socializing doesn't just leave me feeling like shit.
i don't do any of this on purpose and obviously i realize it's fucked up, but it's a recurring theme in my life, from pretty much about as far back as i can remember having thoughts about other people. nature vs. nurture my ass.
i just typed "myspace" by mistake when typing "my ass".
that means it's probably time to eat house and watch some pizza.
ohwhateverfuck.
the moral of the story? i'm a fucking weirdo and am apparently unconsciously unbelievably demanding socially, and the only cure for it is for me to just become a hermit and be miserable and bored because of that instead.
there's got to be some constructive answer to that whole problem, i just haven't figured it out yet. good thing i'm crazy, or life would be boring.
back to my lonely, boring, miserable life with all of my awesome, intelligent, interesting, friends that i totally don't deserve...ha. ha. ha.
accordionz. is that how you spell it?
then i got carried with all that picture garbage.
i'm wearing my awesome heavy-ass wool backpacking socks for the first time of the year tonight. i'm still putting all the pictures i take into a "fall 08" folder, but pretty soon i'm going to have to face up to that whole world-orbiting-the-sun thing and make a "winter 08" folder. that's cool. but it should snow. at least.
all the ahead-ed-ness i've built up working my ass off over the last ten weeks was pretty much frittered away this weekend. which is fine. but just funny. it was like i could only overachieve for so long and then i had to start underachieving for awhile. i cancelled class yesterday, and veteran's day cancelled class today. so i basically had a four-day weekend, and for a large part of that weekend i hung out with friends, went to bars, spent money i didn't have on dinners i wasn't hungry enough to justify, and basically rediscovered what it's like to enjoy being a part of something.
i also slept a lot. i'm always a little hesitant to get into the habit of sleeping too much, because it makes me really depressed, really quickly. especially during this time of the year when so many of the hours of the day are dark. but i didn't really have a choice this time...i didn't have to set an alarm for four days and on some level my body just sort of said "fuck this" and i ended up sleeping until 2 or 3 in the afternoon every day. i adjusted pretty well because it was necessary to, but i'm also glad i have to get up again tomorrow and get on a normal sleep schedule...just in time for the film festival on friday/saturday/sunday...
i spent the afternoon/evening at rico's with a few of the people and the professor from one of my grad seminars, then came back here to catch up on some of the work i should have been doing earlier in the weekend. i did actually clean the shit out of my apartment this weekend, which took most of a day but was something i really needed to do.
anyway, thanks in large part to my friend sarah i was able to avoid a pedagogy meltdown after i got home...and i've spent the rest of the night touching up this paper draft i'm supposed to turn in...right now. whew.
so i'm sitting here at the moment, and despite the happenings of the last few days and their awesomeness, i feel suddenly cold and quiet and shut-down and extremely lonely...well, lonely's not really the word...i guess "alone" is more appropriate. which is weird. because i'm less alone than i've probably been since i last lived with a bunch of friends way back when. but this is what always seems to happen when i spend a bunch of time with people and enjoy myself: when it's over, my immediate, unintentiona response is to feel completely abandoned.
i think that's probably why for so many years i was (i like to this "was" instead of "am") mostly a loner...when i'm alone all the time, it sort of makes me an antisocial wanker and life is sort of boring and doesn't have much of a point outside of selfishness/self-indulgence, but then when i'm not a loner and try to really engage with people, i just keep wanting to do it more and more and it seems like a never reach a point where the cessation of socializing doesn't just leave me feeling like shit.
i don't do any of this on purpose and obviously i realize it's fucked up, but it's a recurring theme in my life, from pretty much about as far back as i can remember having thoughts about other people. nature vs. nurture my ass.
i just typed "myspace" by mistake when typing "my ass".
that means it's probably time to eat house and watch some pizza.
ohwhateverfuck.
the moral of the story? i'm a fucking weirdo and am apparently unconsciously unbelievably demanding socially, and the only cure for it is for me to just become a hermit and be miserable and bored because of that instead.
there's got to be some constructive answer to that whole problem, i just haven't figured it out yet. good thing i'm crazy, or life would be boring.
back to my lonely, boring, miserable life with all of my awesome, intelligent, interesting, friends that i totally don't deserve...ha. ha. ha.
accordionz. is that how you spell it?
(insert subject here)
here's my table-buddy haji. he gets to wear the tie because last time i wore it things didn't go so well (girl things, and i also smoked a lot, which i don't do anymore), so he's sort of earned it and is also protecting me from myself.
here is my wall of timeless, vitally important truths (such as "don't put shampoo in the freezer!" and "world war 3 is a bad idea"). pizza in the corner.
here's jack. he's ridden on 5 of my 7 trips across the country, in the passenger seat (so i don't fall asleep and can talk to myself without feeling weird). now he hangs out on the dresser next to my bed and covers my clock because if i can see the clock i wake up obsessively like every 45 minutes all night (honest to god, this happens all the time).
been to almost all these places.
want to go to almost all these places.
this is, believe or not, what i am currently using to write my rock record. i wrote "w" and "cost benefit analysis" on that fucking cheapsynthesizerthing. i'm also trying to write some stuff for dealbreaker, but it's a bit too intense to figure out while doing grad school stuff. i'm going to have to write it over a break, or go crazy in the process. i want the first one to happen first, but the second one might happen first instead.
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| From fall 08 |
here is my wall of timeless, vitally important truths (such as "don't put shampoo in the freezer!" and "world war 3 is a bad idea"). pizza in the corner.
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| From fall 08 |
here's jack. he's ridden on 5 of my 7 trips across the country, in the passenger seat (so i don't fall asleep and can talk to myself without feeling weird). now he hangs out on the dresser next to my bed and covers my clock because if i can see the clock i wake up obsessively like every 45 minutes all night (honest to god, this happens all the time).
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| From fall 08 |
been to almost all these places.
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| From fall 08 |
want to go to almost all these places.
 |
| From fall 08 |
this is, believe or not, what i am currently using to write my rock record. i wrote "w" and "cost benefit analysis" on that fucking cheapsynthesizerthing. i'm also trying to write some stuff for dealbreaker, but it's a bit too intense to figure out while doing grad school stuff. i'm going to have to write it over a break, or go crazy in the process. i want the first one to happen first, but the second one might happen first instead.
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| From fall 08 |
back on the wagon.
at least for now, i am. i think i've had enough inebriation (somehow) in the last two weeks to make my 2003-self sick of droekenings.
last weekend ended like this:
and now this weekend ended like this:
wow. i look weird backwards.
i'm actually sort of obsessed with seeing how other people look in the mirror, especially good friends or people i see pretty much all the time. i remember when i used to live with my ex-girlfriend it always freaked me out to see her in the mirror in the bathroom because her face was backwards...it was like "hey, it's you...but also some slightly off version of you that just might be that alien we're all subconsciously hoping doesn't exist".
last weekend ended like this:
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| From fall 08 |
and now this weekend ended like this:
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| From fall 08 |
wow. i look weird backwards.
i'm actually sort of obsessed with seeing how other people look in the mirror, especially good friends or people i see pretty much all the time. i remember when i used to live with my ex-girlfriend it always freaked me out to see her in the mirror in the bathroom because her face was backwards...it was like "hey, it's you...but also some slightly off version of you that just might be that alien we're all subconsciously hoping doesn't exist".
i am so ashamed...
...that i didn't like band of horses' cease to begin when i first listened to it. now, about nine months later, i am in love with it. so good. especially this random bluegrass/hammond-organ-type song towards the end of the album.
i also think i might have accidentally turned up a prerelease mix of margot and the nuclear so-and-sos' dust of retreat. i freaking love this album, and the version i have in my possession has a different track order and there is a lot less rock and a lot more violin than on the original version. very cool listen.
i also think i might have accidentally turned up a prerelease mix of margot and the nuclear so-and-sos' dust of retreat. i freaking love this album, and the version i have in my possession has a different track order and there is a lot less rock and a lot more violin than on the original version. very cool listen.
martyring the saints
so, the rule of the niners season since the week four loss to the panthers? don't go up on them 3-0 early in the game. the rams did it, and ended up losing 63-26. this week the saints did it and ended up losing 49-16.
there's not a whole lot to say. their QB threw four interceptions (three of them to sparks), and they fumbled once. they missed two field goals and at halftime had mustered a brain-destroying 43 yards. the niners scored 800 touchdowns and sacrificed the remaining saints fans on a golden altar at the end of the game.
honestly, our QB was under constant pressure from the saints' linebackers, and he scrambled for over 50 yards, but only in attempts to save his own life. for the second game in a row, he was sacked at least six times, including this humdinger.
luckily, he made it out alive. we're 7-1, and there are two other 7-1 teams and a 9-0 team, but everyone else is comfortably behind, especially in the NFC West. lookin' good for the run to the playoffs.
there's not a whole lot to say. their QB threw four interceptions (three of them to sparks), and they fumbled once. they missed two field goals and at halftime had mustered a brain-destroying 43 yards. the niners scored 800 touchdowns and sacrificed the remaining saints fans on a golden altar at the end of the game.
honestly, our QB was under constant pressure from the saints' linebackers, and he scrambled for over 50 yards, but only in attempts to save his own life. for the second game in a row, he was sacked at least six times, including this humdinger.
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| From Other and Posts |
luckily, he made it out alive. we're 7-1, and there are two other 7-1 teams and a 9-0 team, but everyone else is comfortably behind, especially in the NFC West. lookin' good for the run to the playoffs.
Nov 11, 2008
"old enough" finally gets a real video
and by autumn de wilde, whose work i am generally in love with, no less.
horrible sentence construction.
great video.
The Raconteurs "Old Enough"
this is post #666.
YOU'RE ALL GOING TO HELL!!!
horrible sentence construction.
great video.
The Raconteurs "Old Enough"
this is post #666.
YOU'RE ALL GOING TO HELL!!!
Nov 10, 2008
madden overload
so instead of spending last night from 12am to 4am catching up on some of the work i'm letting slip further and further through my fingers, i played two entire madden games back-to-back. to be fair, this is the first time since...uh...july or so that i've stayed up until almost-sunrise playing video games, and as history shows this is something that i must do at least like once a month for my mental well-being. so it's all good. i think.
so the first game was against archrival st. louis. now usually (and especially against st. louis) if bowes gains less than 50 yards on the ground OR the other team scores around 30 points, we lose. there were extenuating circumstances in this case though, as our quarterback threw for 8 touchdowns and over 500 yards. four of those touchdowns were over 30 yard passes, two were 75 yards apiece (both to raymond scholl), and bowes tacked on a 60 yard run as i was trying to just run the clock out to make the final 63-26.
the rams' QB (not warner) was under pressure all game, and it didn't help that he had 60 pass attempts, so we basically knew every single play from scrimmage was going to be a pass and could adjust accordingly (read: four interceptions). here's one particularly memorable impact:
prewett continued his habit of making infrequent but impossible catches:
not only our biggest win ever against the rams, but possibly our biggest win in general. the sad thing is, at one point they were winning 3-0. right before halftime it was 28-20. then the floodgates opened.
our next victims were the ravens. there was a bit of derring-do at the end of the game that made it interesting, but we held on to win 44-38. how the ravens scored 38 points, i know not. on our very first possession, we punted to this raven dude brackens and he, like, totally dropped the punt and donny smith totally ran it into the endzone for, like, six points.
prewett did that impossible thing again:
and suddenly it was 21-7 and it seemed like another blowout was coming. to their credit, though, the ravens stayed with us (partially thanks to two bunting interceptions deep in our own territory), even when we were completing touchdown passes like this one (you can see the quarterback getting slammed in the upper right corner as he lets go of this crazy wobbler that barber shoestringed):
and this (again, getting hit on the release):
and to put us ahead for good was bowes throwing his first touchdown pass:
even though he paid for it a few minutes later:
we were up 41-24 with about 8 minutes left in the game, when all of a sudden the ravens remembered how to play football and then it was 41-38. fortunately they used up all their time outs and had to punt to us from their own end zone, which set up a 50 yard stewart field goal to make it 44-38. with no timeouts, the ravens got the ball back and actually completed a few passes with under a minute left before throwing three incompletes in a row and then a hail mary that fell short at about the 20 yardline as time ran out. good times.
saints up next.
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| From Other and Posts |
the rams' QB (not warner) was under pressure all game, and it didn't help that he had 60 pass attempts, so we basically knew every single play from scrimmage was going to be a pass and could adjust accordingly (read: four interceptions). here's one particularly memorable impact:
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| From Other and Posts |
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| From Other and Posts |
our next victims were the ravens. there was a bit of derring-do at the end of the game that made it interesting, but we held on to win 44-38. how the ravens scored 38 points, i know not. on our very first possession, we punted to this raven dude brackens and he, like, totally dropped the punt and donny smith totally ran it into the endzone for, like, six points.
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| From Other and Posts |
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| From Other and Posts |
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| From Other and Posts |
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| From Other and Posts |
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| From Other and Posts |
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| From Other and Posts |
saints up next.
Nov 9, 2008
planetcardinal invaded by yamahatone
instead of doing anything productive today, i doddered around cleaning up my remaining internet mess from yesterday, watched some TV, went to moscow with some friends, then came home and for some reason recorded this.
grip on reality: WANT.
grip on reality: WANT.
cardinal beat-down
some might say that after going 1-3 in the preseason, winning two of their first three games in barn-burner overtimes against mediocre teams, and then losing to a decent-at-best panther team, the niners could be 1-4 just as easily as they could be 4-1. one might say that. if we were talking about real football, and not madden football.
but we're talking about madden football.
and i destroyed the cardinals last night.
despite a shopping-cart-ful of dropped passes, bowes gained 150 on the ground and the cardinals were unable to get much of any offense going (their 15 points were three looooong field goals and one touchdown that game right at the end of the game on a hail mary pass). at the end of the first quarter, we had two 7-minute drives and two touchdowns and they had run 6 plays and gained -3 yards. ray scholl had two touchdowns in the game, and his first one was a brilliant catch right in the corner of the end zone.
things evened out a bit after that, and it was 14-6 going into the half, 17-6 immediately after. it was 30-9 in the fourth quarter when the cards scored their first touchdown and looked to be attempting a comeback, now down 30-15, but on the second play from scrimmage on the next drive the niners used the bunting-to-bunting connection on a 50-yards-in-the-air pass for a touchdown to put the game out of reach for good.
next up are the rams, perennial rival for the NFC West's affections. but interestingly enough, they're currently 1-3 and rate lower than the niners for the first time in seven seasons. it would feel nice to completely annhilate them.
but we're talking about madden football.
and i destroyed the cardinals last night.
despite a shopping-cart-ful of dropped passes, bowes gained 150 on the ground and the cardinals were unable to get much of any offense going (their 15 points were three looooong field goals and one touchdown that game right at the end of the game on a hail mary pass). at the end of the first quarter, we had two 7-minute drives and two touchdowns and they had run 6 plays and gained -3 yards. ray scholl had two touchdowns in the game, and his first one was a brilliant catch right in the corner of the end zone.
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| From Other and Posts |
things evened out a bit after that, and it was 14-6 going into the half, 17-6 immediately after. it was 30-9 in the fourth quarter when the cards scored their first touchdown and looked to be attempting a comeback, now down 30-15, but on the second play from scrimmage on the next drive the niners used the bunting-to-bunting connection on a 50-yards-in-the-air pass for a touchdown to put the game out of reach for good.
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| From Other and Posts |
next up are the rams, perennial rival for the NFC West's affections. but interestingly enough, they're currently 1-3 and rate lower than the niners for the first time in seven seasons. it would feel nice to completely annhilate them.
Nov 7, 2008
nvidia geforce 2e43/enough life, honeycutt sleep now
a couple notes from today:
1. as of right now, i have no scheduled obligations until wednesday. sure, i have like 18 hours of work a day all weekend and monday and tuesday. but i can sleep a bit and don't have to be anywhere at any certain time. also, the film festival is next friday/saturday.
2. i was so tired today that i:
a. fell asleep in spanish again
b. woke up a few moments later, looked at my jacket and thought to myself "god, this jacket is in a really high resolution"
c. later on in the same class, looked inside my jacket, saw the matrixy-crazy lining in there and shouted "oh my god!" in surprise (in the middle of class) because i was so profoundly amazed that humanity could construct such a thing
d. at one point (again in the same class), we were trying to figure out how to translate a word that essentially meant "curmudgeonly" in the context of a story about moby dick (as in "the ____ whale") and one of my classmates suggested "antisocial". for some reason this struck me as so funny that i laughed out loud for about 30 seconds and became afraid that i wasn't going to be able to stop.
3. something something jefferson coalsmith charmin
4. i just plunged a knife (accidentally) into the blubbery part of my right index finger. blood everywhere. not a long cut, but sort of deep and the knife was really dirty. taped the finger a bit because when i bent it afterwards, the opposing flaps of skin rubbed together and it hurt a lot. should heal fine, but being unable to move it until morning will help immensely.
1. as of right now, i have no scheduled obligations until wednesday. sure, i have like 18 hours of work a day all weekend and monday and tuesday. but i can sleep a bit and don't have to be anywhere at any certain time. also, the film festival is next friday/saturday.
2. i was so tired today that i:
a. fell asleep in spanish again
b. woke up a few moments later, looked at my jacket and thought to myself "god, this jacket is in a really high resolution"
c. later on in the same class, looked inside my jacket, saw the matrixy-crazy lining in there and shouted "oh my god!" in surprise (in the middle of class) because i was so profoundly amazed that humanity could construct such a thing
d. at one point (again in the same class), we were trying to figure out how to translate a word that essentially meant "curmudgeonly" in the context of a story about moby dick (as in "the ____ whale") and one of my classmates suggested "antisocial". for some reason this struck me as so funny that i laughed out loud for about 30 seconds and became afraid that i wasn't going to be able to stop.
3. something something jefferson coalsmith charmin
4. i just plunged a knife (accidentally) into the blubbery part of my right index finger. blood everywhere. not a long cut, but sort of deep and the knife was really dirty. taped the finger a bit because when i bent it afterwards, the opposing flaps of skin rubbed together and it hurt a lot. should heal fine, but being unable to move it until morning will help immensely.
Nov 6, 2008
jack in the box
no, i didn't fall off the wagon and eat at jack in the box.
i was just thinking about how much better i feel doing things now; getting out, occasionally taking a step back from work to talk to someone or have dinner with a friend or, say, go to a concert. or even to stop and write on here.
i realized i feel a bit like a jack-in-the-box most of the time; lots of contained, potential energy always ready to explode, but needing someone or something else to turn the crank, to provide the impetus, for me to be able to explode that energy out into the outside world. otherwise, i just keep bouncing the energy around in my little box and i end up repeating myself...to myself.
so in that way, even for me to be expressive in my most insular way(s), i still need other people to help in some capacity. that's humbling, but also great. it's the difference between stargazing on a clear winter night and stargazing during a thunderstorm during the day.
hmm...pizza time.
i was just thinking about how much better i feel doing things now; getting out, occasionally taking a step back from work to talk to someone or have dinner with a friend or, say, go to a concert. or even to stop and write on here.
i realized i feel a bit like a jack-in-the-box most of the time; lots of contained, potential energy always ready to explode, but needing someone or something else to turn the crank, to provide the impetus, for me to be able to explode that energy out into the outside world. otherwise, i just keep bouncing the energy around in my little box and i end up repeating myself...to myself.
so in that way, even for me to be expressive in my most insular way(s), i still need other people to help in some capacity. that's humbling, but also great. it's the difference between stargazing on a clear winter night and stargazing during a thunderstorm during the day.
hmm...pizza time.
mason jennings - knitting factory - 2008-11-05
mason rocked the shit out of the knitting factory tonight. he's one of my favorite songwriters, but he's (in my mind) notorious for putting on technically proficient but emotionally lackluster live shows that essentially recreate the album tracks exactly as they are on the album. he didn't deviate much from any of these things tonight, but since it had been almost 5 years since i'd seen him live (4th time total), and he'd put out three albums since then, and the show was in a nearly empty knitting factory in spokane AND it was only 12 bucks...the awesome more than outweighed the slightly-textbookiness.
i have no idea what the order of the setlist was (i brought a notepad to write it down, but then i decided actually getting engaged in the show and caring about shit was more important. yeah, i know, shame on me. also, i was for the most part about 6-10 feet away from mason and his mic stand the entire show, so it felt a bit like a waste to play too much with other toys while he was basically singing right into my face. regardless, i'm going to take a guess at the songs that were played:
nothing
butterfly*
california, pt. 2
darkness between fireflies (with weird baroque-style picking solo)
birds flying away*
living in the moment*
sorry signs* (really good)
adrian (oh shit)
crown* (roof came off, everybody jumping around)
ulysses*
be here now*
jackson square*
never knew your name* > jam/chant thing > going back to new orleans* (wow)
i love you and buddha too*
fighter girl*
your new man*
memphis tennessee (opening song)
how deep is that river
soldier boy*
perfect lover*
in your city
new song 1
new song 2
*played with band and/or zach gill; everything else solo acoustic/piano
so. first. the show was alternating solo/band. alternating in the sense that they switched a few times. it was interesting, and i actually mean that in a positive way. i had sort of wanted to see a rock-type set, and wasn't too excited to hear mason alone for 2 hours; at the same time, once the band came out it was honestly really weird for me to adjust to the fact that brian mcleod and chris morrissey weren't there anymore because they were such an integral part of the mason jennings band back in the day. i wanted to dislike these guys but they were solid. the bass player didn't have much to do (when does a mason band bass player have anything to do?) but adam topol and zach gill (both jack johnson band vets and great musicians) were excellent replacements, even if i still wished i could see brian and chris play again. or even rob skoro. anyway.
zach gill was a fucking incredible opener. he alternated between playing blues piano, a ukelele, a combination accordion/bass drum synth-pedal thing, and rapping with the crowd. he was an amazing performer, and even if i didn't necessarily think his songs were the greatest, he had the crowd eating out of his hand after about 10 minutes. very funny and charismatic guy. i was very happy to see him come out with the band (the second and third times they came out to play with mason) to jam on keyboard.
mason was his usual self; in the pocket and imperturbable. he doesn't come out of the box too much, but his songs are so good that he doesn't really need to.
i loved hearing him play so many songs off of the first album. i loved getting to hear "i was drivin' faster through the appalachians..." again. took me back to, yes, driving through the appalachians myself hearing him sing "darkness between fireflies" for the first time on the way home from a road trip in 2001 one and thinking "who the fuck is this guy?"
other highlights:
- jamming ending to "butterfly"
- new song 1, a funny/mason-cheesy song about all the ways we could die (hit by a car, hit by an asteroid, worrying ourselves to death, etc.) and how that meant we should all love our lives and be nice to each other...song was preceded by a hilarious monologue about the supervolcano and how it was going to kill all of us (mason: "have you guys heard of the supervolcano?" crowd: "YEEEEEAH!!!!")
- new song 2, a flat-out amazing song about the environment and how we have to take care of the earth in order to take care of ourselves...preceded by a monologue about the ice caps melting and how he was talking way too much for one night about global catastrophes
- "your new man" with zach gill on accordion and harmony vocals
- "crown" with mason almost blowing the damn harmonica out
- "i love you..." with the crowd spontaneously singing along to help with the outro...very cool somehow to be in a room with a bunch of people all singing "oh, jesus, i love you, and i love buddha too" over and over while dancing with each other. that's why i love mason music.
- especially if you're close to the stage, mason is one of the few performers who has this odd habit of making really intense eye contact with you when he's singing. there was this awesome moment at the climax of "jackson square" (one of my favorites) when we were both singing (i guess i was sort of yelling) the part that goes "anybody who thinks that life is clear/has never seen a mirror/or been to jackson square" and we made eye contact and it was like looking at the fucking mona lisa...like i had just fallen into this crazy black hole or was looking right into the soul of some 1000 year old yogi or something. definitely completely intense and not even a "concert" moment, more like a spiritual, connecting sort of moment. i don't know if that sounds silly, but that's how it felt.
- also at one point a bunch of people up front were screaming for random semi-rare songs, and i yelled (to shut them up) "play whatever song you want to play!" and he laughed a bit at that.
- possibly the best moment was after the "never knew your name", which broke down into this crazy piano-plinking/chanting drum circle-type jam thing, the band went immediately into "back to new orleans", which featured mason singing vocals over a completely random arrhythmic piano line (similar to how wilco plays "via chicago" live) and then ending with the line "With a head that’s heavy and a heart that’s sore/Gonna swing my hammer, Gonna stop this war" at which everybody up front threw their hands up and started cheering, LOUD. i couldn't help thinking it was an intentional response to last night.
- solo acoustic "adrian". i love this song. i got to hear it in columbus in '03 too. definitely had a lump in my throat through the entire thing.
overall, great opener, great show, great atmosphere. the venue wasn't even close to being full, but from where i was, the people who were actually there seemed really into the show and mason and the band seemed to be having a great time. hopefully they'll come back.
i got a shirt at the merch table because i'm a sucker for spending money on good artists that, you know, actually goes to the artist and not the record company (thought i feel less bad about giving my CD money to brushfire records versus, say, universal). it's cool: the "in the ever" album art on the front (which i love) and the tour dates on the back. i'd picture-ificate it right now, but i'm wearing it and am tired. maybe tomorrow.
i have no idea what the order of the setlist was (i brought a notepad to write it down, but then i decided actually getting engaged in the show and caring about shit was more important. yeah, i know, shame on me. also, i was for the most part about 6-10 feet away from mason and his mic stand the entire show, so it felt a bit like a waste to play too much with other toys while he was basically singing right into my face. regardless, i'm going to take a guess at the songs that were played:
nothing
butterfly*
california, pt. 2
darkness between fireflies (with weird baroque-style picking solo)
birds flying away*
living in the moment*
sorry signs* (really good)
adrian (oh shit)
crown* (roof came off, everybody jumping around)
ulysses*
be here now*
jackson square*
never knew your name* > jam/chant thing > going back to new orleans* (wow)
i love you and buddha too*
fighter girl*
your new man*
memphis tennessee (opening song)
how deep is that river
soldier boy*
perfect lover*
in your city
new song 1
new song 2
*played with band and/or zach gill; everything else solo acoustic/piano
so. first. the show was alternating solo/band. alternating in the sense that they switched a few times. it was interesting, and i actually mean that in a positive way. i had sort of wanted to see a rock-type set, and wasn't too excited to hear mason alone for 2 hours; at the same time, once the band came out it was honestly really weird for me to adjust to the fact that brian mcleod and chris morrissey weren't there anymore because they were such an integral part of the mason jennings band back in the day. i wanted to dislike these guys but they were solid. the bass player didn't have much to do (when does a mason band bass player have anything to do?) but adam topol and zach gill (both jack johnson band vets and great musicians) were excellent replacements, even if i still wished i could see brian and chris play again. or even rob skoro. anyway.
zach gill was a fucking incredible opener. he alternated between playing blues piano, a ukelele, a combination accordion/bass drum synth-pedal thing, and rapping with the crowd. he was an amazing performer, and even if i didn't necessarily think his songs were the greatest, he had the crowd eating out of his hand after about 10 minutes. very funny and charismatic guy. i was very happy to see him come out with the band (the second and third times they came out to play with mason) to jam on keyboard.
mason was his usual self; in the pocket and imperturbable. he doesn't come out of the box too much, but his songs are so good that he doesn't really need to.
i loved hearing him play so many songs off of the first album. i loved getting to hear "i was drivin' faster through the appalachians..." again. took me back to, yes, driving through the appalachians myself hearing him sing "darkness between fireflies" for the first time on the way home from a road trip in 2001 one and thinking "who the fuck is this guy?"
other highlights:
- jamming ending to "butterfly"
- new song 1, a funny/mason-cheesy song about all the ways we could die (hit by a car, hit by an asteroid, worrying ourselves to death, etc.) and how that meant we should all love our lives and be nice to each other...song was preceded by a hilarious monologue about the supervolcano and how it was going to kill all of us (mason: "have you guys heard of the supervolcano?" crowd: "YEEEEEAH!!!!")
- new song 2, a flat-out amazing song about the environment and how we have to take care of the earth in order to take care of ourselves...preceded by a monologue about the ice caps melting and how he was talking way too much for one night about global catastrophes
- "your new man" with zach gill on accordion and harmony vocals
- "crown" with mason almost blowing the damn harmonica out
- "i love you..." with the crowd spontaneously singing along to help with the outro...very cool somehow to be in a room with a bunch of people all singing "oh, jesus, i love you, and i love buddha too" over and over while dancing with each other. that's why i love mason music.
- especially if you're close to the stage, mason is one of the few performers who has this odd habit of making really intense eye contact with you when he's singing. there was this awesome moment at the climax of "jackson square" (one of my favorites) when we were both singing (i guess i was sort of yelling) the part that goes "anybody who thinks that life is clear/has never seen a mirror/or been to jackson square" and we made eye contact and it was like looking at the fucking mona lisa...like i had just fallen into this crazy black hole or was looking right into the soul of some 1000 year old yogi or something. definitely completely intense and not even a "concert" moment, more like a spiritual, connecting sort of moment. i don't know if that sounds silly, but that's how it felt.
- also at one point a bunch of people up front were screaming for random semi-rare songs, and i yelled (to shut them up) "play whatever song you want to play!" and he laughed a bit at that.
- possibly the best moment was after the "never knew your name", which broke down into this crazy piano-plinking/chanting drum circle-type jam thing, the band went immediately into "back to new orleans", which featured mason singing vocals over a completely random arrhythmic piano line (similar to how wilco plays "via chicago" live) and then ending with the line "With a head that’s heavy and a heart that’s sore/Gonna swing my hammer, Gonna stop this war" at which everybody up front threw their hands up and started cheering, LOUD. i couldn't help thinking it was an intentional response to last night.
- solo acoustic "adrian". i love this song. i got to hear it in columbus in '03 too. definitely had a lump in my throat through the entire thing.
overall, great opener, great show, great atmosphere. the venue wasn't even close to being full, but from where i was, the people who were actually there seemed really into the show and mason and the band seemed to be having a great time. hopefully they'll come back.
i got a shirt at the merch table because i'm a sucker for spending money on good artists that, you know, actually goes to the artist and not the record company (thought i feel less bad about giving my CD money to brushfire records versus, say, universal). it's cool: the "in the ever" album art on the front (which i love) and the tour dates on the back. i'd picture-ificate it right now, but i'm wearing it and am tired. maybe tomorrow.
space bubbles!
so after being basically high all day at work today as part of our lovely "beautification" process on campus, wherein they spray-sealed all the sidewalks around avery with a compound that essentially creates massive amounts of aerosolized silicon vapors (read: pretty fucking sure it's carcinogenic) and watching pedestrians walk by during the sealing process and then watching them minutes later stumbling around gagging and wiping their eyes (yeah, it's totally environmentally safe! good work, fuckers!), i came home and spent the rest of the evening trying to forget how many brain cells i'd probably killed just by being in the building with the trapped fumes all day (fortunately brain cell death makes forgetting easier).
then, ten thousand parenthetical ironic comments later, i was walking back from IGA when my vision started to work in small bubbles of wiggly light instead of, you know, the way your eyes are supposed to work. also, my eyes keep randomly watering up for minutes at a time now. and it's been about 45 minutes and i'm still hallucinating/seeing these watery blobs floating around constantly in the periphery of my sight field. i'd like to think it's unconnected to inhaling silicon fumes. but the odds are even. i think.
then, ten thousand parenthetical ironic comments later, i was walking back from IGA when my vision started to work in small bubbles of wiggly light instead of, you know, the way your eyes are supposed to work. also, my eyes keep randomly watering up for minutes at a time now. and it's been about 45 minutes and i'm still hallucinating/seeing these watery blobs floating around constantly in the periphery of my sight field. i'd like to think it's unconnected to inhaling silicon fumes. but the odds are even. i think.
PIZZA TIME! P-P-PIZZA TIME! P-PIZZA TIME!
so what the hell is up with frozen pizza in this town lately? this is one of my bizzaro pet peeves, so brace yourself.
why do pullman grocery stores constantly refuse to stock vegetarian options despite obvious demand? i'm going to use frozen pizza (obviously not the best example, but one that i have vast personal interest in) to make my point.
so. in the IGA freezer (and this complaint isn't IGA-specific, but again, an easy example) there are, say, six types of pizza. of these pizza types (brands), there are six or so "flavors" of each. there's the obvious (cheese, and pepperoni) and then four other random, specialized kinds. so, of these six "flavors" you start with the same amount of each: that is, say, 10 pizzas of each flavor, every week. in-fucking variably (and this is something i've been noticing now over almost FOUR YEARS) they will sell out of the cheese pizza OF EVERY BRAND within two or three days of restocking. by the end of the week, they will regularly have not sold out of ANY OF THE OTHER FLAVORS. yet, they not only refuse to respond by stocking more of the cheese flavor(s) (which people obviously buy more of), but lately various stores, including IGA, have started just not stocking cheese-only flavors at all for weeks a time, and stepping up their stocking of things like "meat trio" and "taco beef" pizzas...which constantly just DON'T SELL, compared to cheese-only options which consistently sell (and this isn't me making a vegetarian point, this is just pure economic logic). why the fuck do they do this? it makes no sense to me, and IS INFURIATING.
not to mention the fact that if i have a huge hankering for cheap pizza now i have to buy a pepperoni pizza and be really careful to pick off ALL the damn pepperoni slivers and tiny microscopic bits before cooking.
i'm so glad i took the time to bring blogging back down to what it was originally designed for: impotent, incoherent wailing about completely inconsequential bits of everyday life based on the assumption that other people will give some fucks.
why do pullman grocery stores constantly refuse to stock vegetarian options despite obvious demand? i'm going to use frozen pizza (obviously not the best example, but one that i have vast personal interest in) to make my point.
so. in the IGA freezer (and this complaint isn't IGA-specific, but again, an easy example) there are, say, six types of pizza. of these pizza types (brands), there are six or so "flavors" of each. there's the obvious (cheese, and pepperoni) and then four other random, specialized kinds. so, of these six "flavors" you start with the same amount of each: that is, say, 10 pizzas of each flavor, every week. in-fucking variably (and this is something i've been noticing now over almost FOUR YEARS) they will sell out of the cheese pizza OF EVERY BRAND within two or three days of restocking. by the end of the week, they will regularly have not sold out of ANY OF THE OTHER FLAVORS. yet, they not only refuse to respond by stocking more of the cheese flavor(s) (which people obviously buy more of), but lately various stores, including IGA, have started just not stocking cheese-only flavors at all for weeks a time, and stepping up their stocking of things like "meat trio" and "taco beef" pizzas...which constantly just DON'T SELL, compared to cheese-only options which consistently sell (and this isn't me making a vegetarian point, this is just pure economic logic). why the fuck do they do this? it makes no sense to me, and IS INFURIATING.
not to mention the fact that if i have a huge hankering for cheap pizza now i have to buy a pepperoni pizza and be really careful to pick off ALL the damn pepperoni slivers and tiny microscopic bits before cooking.
i'm so glad i took the time to bring blogging back down to what it was originally designed for: impotent, incoherent wailing about completely inconsequential bits of everyday life based on the assumption that other people will give some fucks.
i has a winter
it's winter. already. how do i know? well, two things:
1) even though we just turned the clock back like 2 days ago, it's already almost completely dark by 4:15pm.
2) i just had my first lonely/quiet/cold/eerie/sad/dark walk to dissmore's of the season. this gets to be a habit when the days get shorter, my stomach gets emptier, and the oppressiveness of the long pullman winter makes my cozy/cuddling urge grow to the point that it makes me sad and it starts effecting my sleep/my ability to keep myself from walking around outside in the middle of the night for no reason. i always get exceptionally fragile in some weird way by like december, to the point where i feel like if i got a papercut i would just bleed to death because my immune system would be like "aw, fuck it", or if i got my heart broken or something i would just dissolve like the alterego-character in the illusion of gaia for SNES, and drop through the floor and just disappear into some trans-dimensional basement.
i love winter, but it really intensifies the good and the bad for me. considering my tendency to insist that nothing matters in spite of all evidence, maybe it's a good thing.
1) even though we just turned the clock back like 2 days ago, it's already almost completely dark by 4:15pm.
2) i just had my first lonely/quiet/cold/eerie/sad/dark walk to dissmore's of the season. this gets to be a habit when the days get shorter, my stomach gets emptier, and the oppressiveness of the long pullman winter makes my cozy/cuddling urge grow to the point that it makes me sad and it starts effecting my sleep/my ability to keep myself from walking around outside in the middle of the night for no reason. i always get exceptionally fragile in some weird way by like december, to the point where i feel like if i got a papercut i would just bleed to death because my immune system would be like "aw, fuck it", or if i got my heart broken or something i would just dissolve like the alterego-character in the illusion of gaia for SNES, and drop through the floor and just disappear into some trans-dimensional basement.
i love winter, but it really intensifies the good and the bad for me. considering my tendency to insist that nothing matters in spite of all evidence, maybe it's a good thing.
Nov 5, 2008
what i do at work.
i'm always trying to explain to people who aren't grad students and especially people who haven't gone to college (specifically in the humanities) what it is that i do. not because it's that interesting to anyone but me or because i feel the need to validate my professional existence, but because a lot of people i know have an interest in my life and thus are asking what it is i do for like 18 hours a day.
so my 595 professor showed this last night in class and i thought it was a good example of critical social theory applied to the real world...regardless of how i feel about the west wing as a television show.
so my 595 professor showed this last night in class and i thought it was a good example of critical social theory applied to the real world...regardless of how i feel about the west wing as a television show.
Nov 3, 2008
the shuffle in my winamp brought this song (the jennings cover version) up earlier, perhaps appropriately as i was scouring cnn.com for election news.
i try not to post cheesy slideshow videos as a rule, but this just really struck me, just now.
i know electing one man as president isn't going to magically fix the mistakes we've made in the last 8 years (or hell, the last 200 years) as a country, but everything starts with small steps. it means a whole lot to me to think that we could be a bit closer to living in a country where the people who work in government are as decent as the nice lady at shopko who goes out of her way to be helpful or the great people i work and play with every day. i don't think that's too much to ask and yet, i've been profoundly ashamed of the majority of the people who represent the rest of us to the world at large since i was old enough to be at all informed, and i'm excited to think that maybe i could wake up tomorrow and see things starting to turn back to a point where i could someday hear that "proud to be an american" song that i sung off-key in second grade and actually believe it again.
i try not to post cheesy slideshow videos as a rule, but this just really struck me, just now.
i know electing one man as president isn't going to magically fix the mistakes we've made in the last 8 years (or hell, the last 200 years) as a country, but everything starts with small steps. it means a whole lot to me to think that we could be a bit closer to living in a country where the people who work in government are as decent as the nice lady at shopko who goes out of her way to be helpful or the great people i work and play with every day. i don't think that's too much to ask and yet, i've been profoundly ashamed of the majority of the people who represent the rest of us to the world at large since i was old enough to be at all informed, and i'm excited to think that maybe i could wake up tomorrow and see things starting to turn back to a point where i could someday hear that "proud to be an american" song that i sung off-key in second grade and actually believe it again.
owfuck.
my teeth hurt a lot. just a few particular ones. but they've hurt since saturday morning. i spent a month eating insane amounts of candy, so i suppose it wouldn't be a surprise if i had a cavity, but...i stopped eating candy a few days before the pain started.
all i did right beforehand was drink a bunch of alcohol and get elbowed in the mouth by some dude at the bar. clearly those things couldn't be connected to tooth pain.
i deal with pain pretty well, but tooth pain is more aggravating than most.
grrrrrrrrzzzzzzzzzzzz...
all i did right beforehand was drink a bunch of alcohol and get elbowed in the mouth by some dude at the bar. clearly those things couldn't be connected to tooth pain.
i deal with pain pretty well, but tooth pain is more aggravating than most.
grrrrrrrrzzzzzzzzzzzz...
speaking of the stabbies
i was up all night working on pres #1 (pres #2 as well as proposal #1 and revision #1 pending)...so i think i'm going to go home and get in bed and fucking close the shit out of my eyes for a few hours. i'm planning on working until at least 2am tonight to catch up on all the shit i missed this weekend (not a complaint, i'm glad i missed it). but i don't think i can make a straight trajectory from now to 2am without a little napping.
i'm excited about the film festival next weekend and the mason show on wednesday, but as a result of those things i'm going to have to fucking kill myself to get everything else done that needs to get done before the 14th (and after the 14th up through thanksgiving, when i'll be partially in seattle and partially here/selway and i don't mean at different times i mean divided between the two places at once like a quantum molecule or some shit).
when you know a week holds a possibility of multiple all-nighters but you don't know when, you have to take as much sleep as you can get whenever you can justify it. i can just barely justify it now, so i'm out.
laterz.
i'm excited about the film festival next weekend and the mason show on wednesday, but as a result of those things i'm going to have to fucking kill myself to get everything else done that needs to get done before the 14th (and after the 14th up through thanksgiving, when i'll be partially in seattle and partially here/selway and i don't mean at different times i mean divided between the two places at once like a quantum molecule or some shit).
when you know a week holds a possibility of multiple all-nighters but you don't know when, you have to take as much sleep as you can get whenever you can justify it. i can just barely justify it now, so i'm out.
laterz.
those aren't new walkways, they're LIES!
so that whole thing about the construction being done by november 1st? lies. unless there are people outside just running chainsaws all morning because it's a good time.
i just hope they get everything straightened out before they decide it's too cold to work anymore and leave their shit laying around all winter.
i remember they did that once at KSU and it made it basically the most depressing winter ever. nothing like mud, dirt, snow, and slush piled all over a half-complete but temporarily abandoned construction site to give you a case of the stabbies.
i just hope they get everything straightened out before they decide it's too cold to work anymore and leave their shit laying around all winter.
i remember they did that once at KSU and it made it basically the most depressing winter ever. nothing like mud, dirt, snow, and slush piled all over a half-complete but temporarily abandoned construction site to give you a case of the stabbies.
the rumors of my musical demise have been greatly exaggerated
sadly for you. and your friends.
aside from now having pretty much the exact same band/song/album information on reverbnation, myspace, facebook, and the good ol' main page, i'm trying, somehow, in the depths of the most ridiculously busy semester of my life (and that's saying a FUCKING LOT if you've been around me at all in 2006-07 or 2003) to make some new music.
so, aside from writing things on napkins and post-its at 3am while i'm massaging my temples and thinking about taking nyquil just so i can sleep before having to get up at 7am for work, i've been occasionally sketching out some chord progressions and some little jams that might even be cool to play with other people someday. i'm trying to get at least 2, maybe 3 shows scheduled in ohio over break, hopefully at least a few with andrea, who i would be excited as fuck to open for/split a show with because i wouldn't have actually ever tried to write a song or sing if i hadn't met her and it would be cool to do this because of that (oh and she plays the violin so obviously that's badass). the deal is i want to do three different shows, one hour each, with a different setlist for each one. that means 10-15 different songs all three nights, no repeats. i know this won't matter to anyone else because no one person will be at all three shows, but it'll make them more fun and interesting to play and yowza, i just love that i have that many songs i can play right now.
i might have to bust out the notebook a few times to remember lyrics (especially for "caroline"...i get about 6 minutes into that song and remembering the words is like plowing through tolstoy = the hard). but otherwise it should be a good time and hopefully not embarrassing as like i forget i'm not in my living room and just suddenly try playing a wilco song that's entirely out of my vocal range or trying to capo "enemy" up to Fb minor or something.
other than the show(s), i am again/still/whatever working on four different collections of songs currently. i'm trying not to think of them as records yet, but it helps for me to categorize things. i wouldn't get anything done ever otherwise, were it not for the phantom assumption that some of these things go in basket A and some go in basket B. it's one of those things that i just need to do to wrap my brain around songwriting.
so first we have the ricochet lp, which i'm still working on, which is still the rock/jam version of a bunch of not california tracks...i stopped calling it an ep because at this point it's honestly longer than the original not cali lp...which was like 13 tracks and 50 minutes...this thing is like 8 tracks and 55-60 minutes with a bunch of low-fi, grungy, feedback sounds that nobody will want to listen to except me, but i'm excited as fuck about it anyway.
second we have lp3 (it doesn't have a name yet), which will be the collection that has all the fall 2007 songs on it (melody, et al)...i'm picturing it as a side A/side B thing where those six songs are on side A then there's six new songs (including delicate and better to be loved) and then at the end a just-piano song like where i play piano and sing only (a real piano, somehow) for the first time. the sound of this collection is sort of hollow but crisp (if that makes an fucking sense), and i'm envisioning it with lots of harmonies, lots of piano/bells/melodica/weird shit. i want to make it sound like what indie would sound like if it wasn't indie...like indie in the sense that there'll be a lot of weird shit going on, but just because it's fun, not because i want to prove that i'm the musical equivalent of the kid who thinks he's cool because he memorized the dictionary. i'm not that kid.
then, there's a big stupid rock project where i make a stupid rock thing with rock guitars and lyrics about fucking and dancing and smashing the shit out of shit...i will be drawing pretty much entirely on my 2003-04 life for this...so it should be amusing. i want the production on this record to actually be decent though so i might be interested in getting out of my place and trying to record somewhere else. i want the playing to be loud and sloppy but the recording of that sloppy playing to be clean? make sense? no, moving on...i have a few songs for this already that you might have/might not have heard..."w", "world war 3 was a bad idea", and "cost/benefit analysis"
last but not least is the collection i'm totally into at the moment. it's tenatively (and obviously derivative of heartbreaker) called dealbreaker (semi-humorously, semi-homagely)...and it's basically the recording that i've been practicing for like a year to make. in the last six months or so i've been trying to work a lot harder on fingerpicking, on coming up with really interesting patterns and little instrumental breaks and such things, songs that don't really rely on chords at all to hold them together...in the last year or so i've been working really hard on singing; on making my singing better, on learning how breathe (both while singing and otherwise) and on figuring out what i can and can't do with my voice, where i can go with it and where it's going to just not show up. i'm really really excited about this, and i want to take a bunch of songs that are mostly these types of acoustic (maybe slightly electric) melodies and sing a bunch of intricate read: different than any that i've come up with before harmonies and such overtop of them...along with all this fun, i want to really sit down and dig into revising and editing songs instead of just churning them out and try to write like ten songs that are just the most brutally honest, straightforward intense things in the universe (or at least the part of it that's between my eyes).
i have no illusions about how long it's going to take to do all of this during a ph.d program, but i know that music is my lifeline at the moment and it has been for a few years, and it's really what helps me understand a lot of things that, at one time in the past, i would have just run screaming from.
i have an idea for a book also, but since i'm already writing a dissertation, that idea is going to have to wait until post-2011. seems weird to talk about my future in such far-off terms, but there it is. the diss itself is going to be a book in itself (and i'm definitely going to get that fucker published once i'm done with it) but then i'm thinking about and starting to take notes for this crazy sci-fi/lit theory book sort of like snow crash but with medieval/celtic legends as the foundation and some fucking bizarro quantum theory stuff...fuck...it's weird. but i explained it to a really smart colleague of mine the other night (not while drunk) and she would have told me if it was all bullshit and she didn't. so maybe. we'll see.
anyway, i want to keep hammering away at music, and even though i'm looking down the throat of some of this stuff and thinking that it's possible that i won't get it recorded in satisfactory format for years yet, maybe, i've got to keep working at it and making a little progress here and there as i can and not let it turn into another job (i have enough of those currently) but also not just let it fall to the wayside. music rocks my socks (my boring-ass black socks) and i need to keep writing...but first, to dig myself out of this graduate work hole i've currently drunk/drank/drinken myself into, and then kick some acoustic ass in december.
i will try to bring an MXL or two home on the plane so i can matrix-record any gigs. i will try. without mixmaster mike there, though, who knows what will happen.
to bed for now. if i don't sleep soon, i'll wake up when it's dark out. and that's always fucked for morale. bon soir.
aside from now having pretty much the exact same band/song/album information on reverbnation, myspace, facebook, and the good ol' main page, i'm trying, somehow, in the depths of the most ridiculously busy semester of my life (and that's saying a FUCKING LOT if you've been around me at all in 2006-07 or 2003) to make some new music.
so, aside from writing things on napkins and post-its at 3am while i'm massaging my temples and thinking about taking nyquil just so i can sleep before having to get up at 7am for work, i've been occasionally sketching out some chord progressions and some little jams that might even be cool to play with other people someday. i'm trying to get at least 2, maybe 3 shows scheduled in ohio over break, hopefully at least a few with andrea, who i would be excited as fuck to open for/split a show with because i wouldn't have actually ever tried to write a song or sing if i hadn't met her and it would be cool to do this because of that (oh and she plays the violin so obviously that's badass). the deal is i want to do three different shows, one hour each, with a different setlist for each one. that means 10-15 different songs all three nights, no repeats. i know this won't matter to anyone else because no one person will be at all three shows, but it'll make them more fun and interesting to play and yowza, i just love that i have that many songs i can play right now.
i might have to bust out the notebook a few times to remember lyrics (especially for "caroline"...i get about 6 minutes into that song and remembering the words is like plowing through tolstoy = the hard). but otherwise it should be a good time and hopefully not embarrassing as like i forget i'm not in my living room and just suddenly try playing a wilco song that's entirely out of my vocal range or trying to capo "enemy" up to Fb minor or something.
other than the show(s), i am again/still/whatever working on four different collections of songs currently. i'm trying not to think of them as records yet, but it helps for me to categorize things. i wouldn't get anything done ever otherwise, were it not for the phantom assumption that some of these things go in basket A and some go in basket B. it's one of those things that i just need to do to wrap my brain around songwriting.
so first we have the ricochet lp, which i'm still working on, which is still the rock/jam version of a bunch of not california tracks...i stopped calling it an ep because at this point it's honestly longer than the original not cali lp...which was like 13 tracks and 50 minutes...this thing is like 8 tracks and 55-60 minutes with a bunch of low-fi, grungy, feedback sounds that nobody will want to listen to except me, but i'm excited as fuck about it anyway.
second we have lp3 (it doesn't have a name yet), which will be the collection that has all the fall 2007 songs on it (melody, et al)...i'm picturing it as a side A/side B thing where those six songs are on side A then there's six new songs (including delicate and better to be loved) and then at the end a just-piano song like where i play piano and sing only (a real piano, somehow) for the first time. the sound of this collection is sort of hollow but crisp (if that makes an fucking sense), and i'm envisioning it with lots of harmonies, lots of piano/bells/melodica/weird shit. i want to make it sound like what indie would sound like if it wasn't indie...like indie in the sense that there'll be a lot of weird shit going on, but just because it's fun, not because i want to prove that i'm the musical equivalent of the kid who thinks he's cool because he memorized the dictionary. i'm not that kid.
then, there's a big stupid rock project where i make a stupid rock thing with rock guitars and lyrics about fucking and dancing and smashing the shit out of shit...i will be drawing pretty much entirely on my 2003-04 life for this...so it should be amusing. i want the production on this record to actually be decent though so i might be interested in getting out of my place and trying to record somewhere else. i want the playing to be loud and sloppy but the recording of that sloppy playing to be clean? make sense? no, moving on...i have a few songs for this already that you might have/might not have heard..."w", "world war 3 was a bad idea", and "cost/benefit analysis"
last but not least is the collection i'm totally into at the moment. it's tenatively (and obviously derivative of heartbreaker) called dealbreaker (semi-humorously, semi-homagely)...and it's basically the recording that i've been practicing for like a year to make. in the last six months or so i've been trying to work a lot harder on fingerpicking, on coming up with really interesting patterns and little instrumental breaks and such things, songs that don't really rely on chords at all to hold them together...in the last year or so i've been working really hard on singing; on making my singing better, on learning how breathe (both while singing and otherwise) and on figuring out what i can and can't do with my voice, where i can go with it and where it's going to just not show up. i'm really really excited about this, and i want to take a bunch of songs that are mostly these types of acoustic (maybe slightly electric) melodies and sing a bunch of intricate read: different than any that i've come up with before harmonies and such overtop of them...along with all this fun, i want to really sit down and dig into revising and editing songs instead of just churning them out and try to write like ten songs that are just the most brutally honest, straightforward intense things in the universe (or at least the part of it that's between my eyes).
i have no illusions about how long it's going to take to do all of this during a ph.d program, but i know that music is my lifeline at the moment and it has been for a few years, and it's really what helps me understand a lot of things that, at one time in the past, i would have just run screaming from.
i have an idea for a book also, but since i'm already writing a dissertation, that idea is going to have to wait until post-2011. seems weird to talk about my future in such far-off terms, but there it is. the diss itself is going to be a book in itself (and i'm definitely going to get that fucker published once i'm done with it) but then i'm thinking about and starting to take notes for this crazy sci-fi/lit theory book sort of like snow crash but with medieval/celtic legends as the foundation and some fucking bizarro quantum theory stuff...fuck...it's weird. but i explained it to a really smart colleague of mine the other night (not while drunk) and she would have told me if it was all bullshit and she didn't. so maybe. we'll see.
anyway, i want to keep hammering away at music, and even though i'm looking down the throat of some of this stuff and thinking that it's possible that i won't get it recorded in satisfactory format for years yet, maybe, i've got to keep working at it and making a little progress here and there as i can and not let it turn into another job (i have enough of those currently) but also not just let it fall to the wayside. music rocks my socks (my boring-ass black socks) and i need to keep writing...but first, to dig myself out of this graduate work hole i've currently drunk/drank/drinken myself into, and then kick some acoustic ass in december.
i will try to bring an MXL or two home on the plane so i can matrix-record any gigs. i will try. without mixmaster mike there, though, who knows what will happen.
to bed for now. if i don't sleep soon, i'll wake up when it's dark out. and that's always fucked for morale. bon soir.
Nov 2, 2008
ahhhhh...the fucking panthers
there are three teams in the universe of my madden franchise that can make me shoot fire of fury out of my eye sockets on a regular basis. one team is the rams, who at least earn my fury by showing up and playing well and sometimes beating me. then there's the seahawks, who are pretty good (but not good enough), and yet somehow always seem to either pull off a win or put up an unacceptably difficult fight (see week one of this season for evidence of this). then there's the carolina panthers, who are absolutely fucking horrible but through any number of random contrivances always seem to beat me. like in last night's game, where they were leading 14-10 at halftime despite the fact that i had 250 total yards and they had 15. i had 14 first downs and they had zero. zero. i'll just let that sink in...
they went on to win 34-27 while garnering a mind-numbingly low 200 total yards. almost 100 of those yards were gained on 2 separate pass plays that both involved the ball bouncing off someone else's helmet before it was caught. 21 of their 34 points came from either special teams or defense. it was unacceptably ridiculous. yet, here we are, 3-1, and another year of undefeated awesomeness possibility is out of reach.
here's a picture of something that ernie did good before everything went to hell:
they went on to win 34-27 while garnering a mind-numbingly low 200 total yards. almost 100 of those yards were gained on 2 separate pass plays that both involved the ball bouncing off someone else's helmet before it was caught. 21 of their 34 points came from either special teams or defense. it was unacceptably ridiculous. yet, here we are, 3-1, and another year of undefeated awesomeness possibility is out of reach.
here's a picture of something that ernie did good before everything went to hell:
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| From Other and Posts |
Nov 1, 2008
droekening
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| From fall 08 |
greeting the morning with a "smile".
great halloween. it's one of those few particular days of the year that i feel should be celebrated with an incredibly long, digressive, jamming rock concert (along with NYE), but since that wasn't happening (obviously), it should instead have been celebrated by dancing, alcohol, and tomfoolery. and oh, it was.
glad i'm finally learning to kind of get out of my work-zone a little. it's really good for me. and i'm surrounded by really good people that i would totally just fly by otherwise.
at some point tonight i need to hit avery for some serious reading, but right now my head feels like it's on fire. and blowing up and dying and shit.
so i'm going to call a few peeps and then take a nap and probably get up and eat and what the fuck probably also finally - finally - listen to cardinology. then the show's over and it's back to work. but what a great vacation. thing.
more later on the cardinology perhaps.
oh...there are real pictures from last night, but not on my camera, on someone else's. so if there are any, once i see them, that don't involve me making a complete ass of me, i'll post them. unlikely there will be, though.
BZANG!
oh fuck the ceiling tiles are moving independently of one another.
which is extra interesting because the ceiling doesn't have tiles.
happy early thanksgiving everyone. my feet are currently made of marshmallows and perseus wings.
i'm drinkiing 2 litres of water so when i wake up i'm not all like 'URAGH!!!!' AND JUNK.
whoa. caps lock check.
i'd like to write meaningful shit because i'ts always funny to reread in the morning when i'm super-sober but...no.
i will not.
i also want to smoke cigarettes but i will not do that. mostly because i am currently wearing pajamas with santa claus on them and am shirtless. i think my shit might get arrested and shit.
have a lovely e3vening. i hope i dream about sexy dragons that come to earth in human form.
i hope you do, too.
which is extra interesting because the ceiling doesn't have tiles.
happy early thanksgiving everyone. my feet are currently made of marshmallows and perseus wings.
i'm drinkiing 2 litres of water so when i wake up i'm not all like 'URAGH!!!!' AND JUNK.
whoa. caps lock check.
i'd like to write meaningful shit because i'ts always funny to reread in the morning when i'm super-sober but...no.
i will not.
i also want to smoke cigarettes but i will not do that. mostly because i am currently wearing pajamas with santa claus on them and am shirtless. i think my shit might get arrested and shit.
have a lovely e3vening. i hope i dream about sexy dragons that come to earth in human form.
i hope you do, too.
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