see post title.
i'm sorry, i'll start again soon. note that this apology is to myself.
6/30/05
6/18/05
i'm a bad scene and there's everyone to blame but me
ladies and gentlemen, there is something wrong with me. tonight i have finally come to terms with a very simple fact: i am a sociopath. though maybe not quite to the serial killer level, there is clearly something about me that is very different from what has become a societal norm.
you see, i don't like to go to bars. i hate them. i go anyway sometimes, you know, to hang out with my friends, but when i'm there, everything about it makes me angry. i despise a large majority of the music played at twentysomething bars, which just so happens to be played at a level of volume only fit for a live show. i hate buying drinks, even more for the futile act of getting a bartender's attention than the incredibly high cost of the beer. i loathe how crowded they are, full of girls with too much makeup and guys with too much axe body spray. i just really don't like the places; in my opinion, they're all the worst in people.
some people--well, lots of people--love this scene. i once had a theory why: no one, i thought, really actually likes it here. they're all faking it because they don't want anyone to not think they're cool. but really, they all hate it, it's just that no one's spoken up since the sixties, and so this thing that was created in the seventies has never been challenged.
i don't think it was just tonight that i came to my new conclusion, but it was definitely the first time i've officially admitted it to myself. my new conclusion is simply that i'm wrong: i really am the only one who hates going out to bars. as i watched a couple of my friends engaged in a conversation, not having any idea what they were talking about simply because i couldn't hear them, i realized that i must be on some other frequency; they could hear and understand each other just fine, even through all the oppressive noise and heat and bullshit of the bar around them.
what is my problem? why does this situation always make me feel so damn awkward? why can't i just relax and enjoy myself? i'll tell you why: because i'm a sociopath. i'm sure i'll write more on this later, but right now i'm sleepy and i've got a big day tomorrow of not being hung over like all the rest of you.
you see, i don't like to go to bars. i hate them. i go anyway sometimes, you know, to hang out with my friends, but when i'm there, everything about it makes me angry. i despise a large majority of the music played at twentysomething bars, which just so happens to be played at a level of volume only fit for a live show. i hate buying drinks, even more for the futile act of getting a bartender's attention than the incredibly high cost of the beer. i loathe how crowded they are, full of girls with too much makeup and guys with too much axe body spray. i just really don't like the places; in my opinion, they're all the worst in people.
some people--well, lots of people--love this scene. i once had a theory why: no one, i thought, really actually likes it here. they're all faking it because they don't want anyone to not think they're cool. but really, they all hate it, it's just that no one's spoken up since the sixties, and so this thing that was created in the seventies has never been challenged.
i don't think it was just tonight that i came to my new conclusion, but it was definitely the first time i've officially admitted it to myself. my new conclusion is simply that i'm wrong: i really am the only one who hates going out to bars. as i watched a couple of my friends engaged in a conversation, not having any idea what they were talking about simply because i couldn't hear them, i realized that i must be on some other frequency; they could hear and understand each other just fine, even through all the oppressive noise and heat and bullshit of the bar around them.
what is my problem? why does this situation always make me feel so damn awkward? why can't i just relax and enjoy myself? i'll tell you why: because i'm a sociopath. i'm sure i'll write more on this later, but right now i'm sleepy and i've got a big day tomorrow of not being hung over like all the rest of you.
6/16/05
i'll be in charge of the first insane rock star asylum
i'm not entirely sure i remember how or why we started talking about it today, but one of us at work made a comment that we should be listening to michael jackson this week. another one of us, jordan i think, said something about his sister (yes, it must have been jordan then) not wanting to listen to mj ever again. that, to me, is very sad. how can we forget about everything michael has done for us just because he's a fucking lunatic now? find me someone on the street that won't sing "billie jean" with you. well, someone besides jordan's sister.
at what point are we allowed to let a musician's life get in the way of their music? i asked myself that question as i sat down to write it, and already, approximately fifteen words later, I have my answer: when their music starts to sound like their lives. i can still listen to "thriller" because it has absolutely nothing to do with sleeping with little boys or with being fucking out of your goddamn mind (well, i suppose that last point could be argued, but you know what i mean). i'm trying to think of negative examples, and unfortunately all i can think of is fred durst, who continues to be such a fucking douchebag all the time that he has to go and ruin a perfectly good who song just so he can stop writing terribly shitting rhymes about how he once touched britney spears.
i've never tried to listen to invincible, mainly because i'm afraid it might sound like what michael has become: an awful human being. i suppose "you rock my world" wasn't altogether terrible, but it certainly wasn't very good, and besides, by the time the album came out, we already had his replacement groomed and ready to go. i said it before, and i'll say it again: "rock your body" is my favorite michael jackson song. anyway, it doesn't matter, because the real michael jackson ceased to exist after the release of dangerous. sure, there was some guy claiming to be him that did a whole bunch of crazy nonsense, like dangling babies out of windows and claiming that record industry racism was the cause of disappointing sales for invincible, but we all know that wasn't--couldn't be--our michael.
because really, honestly, when you think about it, there's obviously something very wrong with this michael. i'll be up front about this: there is no doubt in my mind that he is guilty. he might not be guilty of this particular offense, and the previous actions of the accusers are indeed suspicious, but he did say on national television that he sleeps with children. why did he say that? because he's fucking nuts. i am completely convinced that he is a sexual predator and should be kept as far away from children--no no, all people--as he should from a recording studio, but i also thought that, if convicted, he should not go to prison. do you know what they do to guys like him in prison?
he's insane, and he should spend some time--if not the rest of his time--in an institution where someone could at least try to help him. in prison, he would die, guaranteed, within a week. actually, he probably wouldn't have gone to a normal jail anyway; i'm sure jail is different for famous people (e.g. martha stewart). but anyway, jailtime wouldn't help him while institutionalization might. and shouldn't we protect our rock stars, no matter how far they've fallen?
in other news, i think you should listen to this review (by the washington post's hank stuever on npr today) of alanis morissette's new album, which just so happens to be an acoustic re-recording of jagged little pill. a very interesting commentary on a topic that i know i'll pick up shortly. in fact, that's what i was going to write about tonight, but then i decided to write about michael jackson, sorry. until tomorrow.
at what point are we allowed to let a musician's life get in the way of their music? i asked myself that question as i sat down to write it, and already, approximately fifteen words later, I have my answer: when their music starts to sound like their lives. i can still listen to "thriller" because it has absolutely nothing to do with sleeping with little boys or with being fucking out of your goddamn mind (well, i suppose that last point could be argued, but you know what i mean). i'm trying to think of negative examples, and unfortunately all i can think of is fred durst, who continues to be such a fucking douchebag all the time that he has to go and ruin a perfectly good who song just so he can stop writing terribly shitting rhymes about how he once touched britney spears.
i've never tried to listen to invincible, mainly because i'm afraid it might sound like what michael has become: an awful human being. i suppose "you rock my world" wasn't altogether terrible, but it certainly wasn't very good, and besides, by the time the album came out, we already had his replacement groomed and ready to go. i said it before, and i'll say it again: "rock your body" is my favorite michael jackson song. anyway, it doesn't matter, because the real michael jackson ceased to exist after the release of dangerous. sure, there was some guy claiming to be him that did a whole bunch of crazy nonsense, like dangling babies out of windows and claiming that record industry racism was the cause of disappointing sales for invincible, but we all know that wasn't--couldn't be--our michael.
because really, honestly, when you think about it, there's obviously something very wrong with this michael. i'll be up front about this: there is no doubt in my mind that he is guilty. he might not be guilty of this particular offense, and the previous actions of the accusers are indeed suspicious, but he did say on national television that he sleeps with children. why did he say that? because he's fucking nuts. i am completely convinced that he is a sexual predator and should be kept as far away from children--no no, all people--as he should from a recording studio, but i also thought that, if convicted, he should not go to prison. do you know what they do to guys like him in prison?
he's insane, and he should spend some time--if not the rest of his time--in an institution where someone could at least try to help him. in prison, he would die, guaranteed, within a week. actually, he probably wouldn't have gone to a normal jail anyway; i'm sure jail is different for famous people (e.g. martha stewart). but anyway, jailtime wouldn't help him while institutionalization might. and shouldn't we protect our rock stars, no matter how far they've fallen?
in other news, i think you should listen to this review (by the washington post's hank stuever on npr today) of alanis morissette's new album, which just so happens to be an acoustic re-recording of jagged little pill. a very interesting commentary on a topic that i know i'll pick up shortly. in fact, that's what i was going to write about tonight, but then i decided to write about michael jackson, sorry. until tomorrow.
just keep swimming
i don't really have anything to say tonight, but i'm going to force myself to write. why? well, i think it's good for me. my brain is constantly bleeding out my ears with each passing day and i can only assume that it needs some exercise once in a while too. maybe i can stop the hemorrhaging, or at least catch some of it on paper (figuratively, of course, as is the case with most things internet) as it oozes down the side of my face.
there was a time that i loved to write. i went through high school assuming that i'd spend the rest of my life writing: i was going to go to college and major in english, then do something to pay the bills while i finished two books, the first being the beginning of a very complex and well thought-out science fiction/fantasy epic, and the second being the great american novel. i started trying to get to both of those goals my senior year of high school; for my writing seminar class i wrote the first chapter of my epic and a whole lot of short stories to refine my storytelling style. looking back, pretty much everything i write sounds the same, except of course for that first chapter of the epic, which is just completely awful in every way. my regular style, however, hasn't really changed much over the past five years; if you are familiar with the way i talk, then you'll recognize my writing and vice versa. i'm overblown and overdramatic, i use far too much parallel structure and far too many semicolons, and i tend to sound inauthentically articulate. whenever i read back over something i've written, i always think to myself "man, i'm such a wannabe pretentious douchebag," but then i sort of realize that that's actually kind of the way i talk. so over the past two years or so, i've come to terms with it. i'm a wannabe pretentious douchebag.
i mean, seriously, i'm writing in all lowercase. how pretentious is that? in case you're wondering, i do that because i'm making a conscious effort not to correct my mistakes and to try and attempt to be sloppy. it doesn't really work, of course, as i'm still looking up words i'm not 100% sure how to spell (like hemorrhaging, which i did spell right, but i looked it up just to be sure), but at least i'm trying. i don't remember who told me to try and write like this, but i dunno, it's more comfortable to look at what i'm writing and see something unfinished than something finished that i look at and think is crap. i wonder if that made any sense? well, it did in my head, and i guess i'm the one i'm trying to impress.
anyway, like i said, i used to love to write. sometime during college, however, i guess i sort of realized that whenever any of my professors would try to help me refine my style, i would get very offended and hurt, and i guess since i figured i wasn't strong enough to take any constructive criticism that i should just stop altogether. so i became a poli-sci major, and for the next two years all i wrote about was eastern europe and presidential foreign policy--which i loved doing, of course, and a good majority of my papers came back with ego-stroking comments on my wonderful writing ability. silly poli-sci teachers, what do they know? most of their literature is written by people like Hannah Arendt, who while unbelievably fascinating uses four hundred words where two will suffice.
so where am i now? out of practice, that's where. it's not a terrible position to be in though, i think; i get to rediscover whatever little ability i once had and maybe try to cultivate it once more. and if i never really had any ability to begin with, at least i had the passion, and as far as i'm concerned that's far more important.
there was a time that i loved to write. i went through high school assuming that i'd spend the rest of my life writing: i was going to go to college and major in english, then do something to pay the bills while i finished two books, the first being the beginning of a very complex and well thought-out science fiction/fantasy epic, and the second being the great american novel. i started trying to get to both of those goals my senior year of high school; for my writing seminar class i wrote the first chapter of my epic and a whole lot of short stories to refine my storytelling style. looking back, pretty much everything i write sounds the same, except of course for that first chapter of the epic, which is just completely awful in every way. my regular style, however, hasn't really changed much over the past five years; if you are familiar with the way i talk, then you'll recognize my writing and vice versa. i'm overblown and overdramatic, i use far too much parallel structure and far too many semicolons, and i tend to sound inauthentically articulate. whenever i read back over something i've written, i always think to myself "man, i'm such a wannabe pretentious douchebag," but then i sort of realize that that's actually kind of the way i talk. so over the past two years or so, i've come to terms with it. i'm a wannabe pretentious douchebag.
i mean, seriously, i'm writing in all lowercase. how pretentious is that? in case you're wondering, i do that because i'm making a conscious effort not to correct my mistakes and to try and attempt to be sloppy. it doesn't really work, of course, as i'm still looking up words i'm not 100% sure how to spell (like hemorrhaging, which i did spell right, but i looked it up just to be sure), but at least i'm trying. i don't remember who told me to try and write like this, but i dunno, it's more comfortable to look at what i'm writing and see something unfinished than something finished that i look at and think is crap. i wonder if that made any sense? well, it did in my head, and i guess i'm the one i'm trying to impress.
anyway, like i said, i used to love to write. sometime during college, however, i guess i sort of realized that whenever any of my professors would try to help me refine my style, i would get very offended and hurt, and i guess since i figured i wasn't strong enough to take any constructive criticism that i should just stop altogether. so i became a poli-sci major, and for the next two years all i wrote about was eastern europe and presidential foreign policy--which i loved doing, of course, and a good majority of my papers came back with ego-stroking comments on my wonderful writing ability. silly poli-sci teachers, what do they know? most of their literature is written by people like Hannah Arendt, who while unbelievably fascinating uses four hundred words where two will suffice.
so where am i now? out of practice, that's where. it's not a terrible position to be in though, i think; i get to rediscover whatever little ability i once had and maybe try to cultivate it once more. and if i never really had any ability to begin with, at least i had the passion, and as far as i'm concerned that's far more important.
6/14/05
the internet is a strange and magical place
i've been contemplating all day (read: the last seven minutes) what exactly i'm going to do with this little piece of the internet. maller made some sort of comment today about me making the most depressing blog ever when i told him about it. i figure i give at least one over-emotional diatribe a day--usually two or three--on the ultimate and inexorable victory of soul-crushing reality. i also figure that the only people that are going to read this if anyone does at all are going to be the very people subjected to those awful, wordy, drawn-out rants. so why make them, er, you, go through them again?
i mean, don't get me wrong: i'm sure i'm going to whine occasionally about how everything that's wrong with my life is not my fault but the fault of a world in which a distorted reality is now a necessity to be free. but i think i'd rather leave that for cynical one-liners and sarcastic pop culture references littered throughout writings about music and other media i feel strongly about.
for example, tonight i'm going to talk about neutral milk hotel's in the aeroplane over the sea, which very well could be the best piece of music ever recorded. i am allowed to say things like that because i am inherently over-dramatic, as you should well know. but see, this time, it's true.
i've heard a lot of people say a lot of things about neutral milk hotel, most of it having to do with the band completely disappearing off the face of the earth and mastermind jeff mangum going insane and joining the circus. i don't have any idea what happened to the band, or what happened to mr. mangum himself (i've done a lot of looking, though, and i can say with much certainty that he does not want to be found), but i do know that none of that really matters, because it's just plain impossible that any human beings can ever do anything like areoplane ever again.
as for the millions of things i've heard people say while trying to describe their sound, neutral milk hotel remains entirely unclassifiable. i've never really tried to call it anything other than lo-fi folk, but aeroplane itself jumps all over the place, following a dark, acoustic folk song with a horn-laden funeral march and following that up with a song that, performed by any other band, might as well be pop-punk. well, maybe that's stretching it, but it's certainly different.
mangum sings with his entire soul, stretching himself to bleeding on every single song. as for what he's singing about, well, i really have no idea. well, i have an idea, but to share that with you would take everything that is so obviously painfully personal out of it; like i said, mangum sings with his whole soul, and whatever he's saying, man, he fuckin' means it. the lyrics come together like images in a dream, frightening images that are occasionally very unsettling. some of the lines in "oh comely" still kind of freak me out, but man is it a fantastic song. there's a theme of death that floats in and out of each of these eleven songs, painting a very interesting picture that, as i said before, is going to be different for everyone, and i could never cheapen the experience by assuming what it looked like to mangum himself. regardless, this is what i want playing at my funeral.
it's a very hard album to describe, you see. after reading through that last paragraph, you're probably thinking to yourself "why the hell would i want to listen to that?" well, despite how dark it can get, and despite how frightening it may sound at times, aeroplane makes me happy like no other single album can. it's like life that way, i guess: the downs just make the ups that much better.
anyway, do whatever you can to get yourself this album. you won't find it at best buy, so look in any record store you can or buy it online. or, since you undoubtedly see me every day, just ask me to make you a copy. it's important.
i mean, don't get me wrong: i'm sure i'm going to whine occasionally about how everything that's wrong with my life is not my fault but the fault of a world in which a distorted reality is now a necessity to be free. but i think i'd rather leave that for cynical one-liners and sarcastic pop culture references littered throughout writings about music and other media i feel strongly about.
for example, tonight i'm going to talk about neutral milk hotel's in the aeroplane over the sea, which very well could be the best piece of music ever recorded. i am allowed to say things like that because i am inherently over-dramatic, as you should well know. but see, this time, it's true.
i've heard a lot of people say a lot of things about neutral milk hotel, most of it having to do with the band completely disappearing off the face of the earth and mastermind jeff mangum going insane and joining the circus. i don't have any idea what happened to the band, or what happened to mr. mangum himself (i've done a lot of looking, though, and i can say with much certainty that he does not want to be found), but i do know that none of that really matters, because it's just plain impossible that any human beings can ever do anything like areoplane ever again.
as for the millions of things i've heard people say while trying to describe their sound, neutral milk hotel remains entirely unclassifiable. i've never really tried to call it anything other than lo-fi folk, but aeroplane itself jumps all over the place, following a dark, acoustic folk song with a horn-laden funeral march and following that up with a song that, performed by any other band, might as well be pop-punk. well, maybe that's stretching it, but it's certainly different.
mangum sings with his entire soul, stretching himself to bleeding on every single song. as for what he's singing about, well, i really have no idea. well, i have an idea, but to share that with you would take everything that is so obviously painfully personal out of it; like i said, mangum sings with his whole soul, and whatever he's saying, man, he fuckin' means it. the lyrics come together like images in a dream, frightening images that are occasionally very unsettling. some of the lines in "oh comely" still kind of freak me out, but man is it a fantastic song. there's a theme of death that floats in and out of each of these eleven songs, painting a very interesting picture that, as i said before, is going to be different for everyone, and i could never cheapen the experience by assuming what it looked like to mangum himself. regardless, this is what i want playing at my funeral.
it's a very hard album to describe, you see. after reading through that last paragraph, you're probably thinking to yourself "why the hell would i want to listen to that?" well, despite how dark it can get, and despite how frightening it may sound at times, aeroplane makes me happy like no other single album can. it's like life that way, i guess: the downs just make the ups that much better.
anyway, do whatever you can to get yourself this album. you won't find it at best buy, so look in any record store you can or buy it online. or, since you undoubtedly see me every day, just ask me to make you a copy. it's important.
6/13/05
more like bLOLg
someone once told me it would be a good idea if i started writing again. i'd have to agree, but what exactly is the point of writing if no one is going to read it? well, since no one is going to read this, i suppose we'll soon find out.
but not tonight. maybe tomorrow. i have to work in the morning.
ps - i'm listening to death from above 1979 - you're a woman, i'm a machine. i highly suggest it to anyone who really needs to rock the fuck out in a very short amount of time; it's rock and roll everclear. no, not to be confused with the actual band everclear, who rarely if ever actually "rock the fuck out." go grab "blood on our hands" or "little girl" or "pull out" or maybe even their cover of bloc party's excellent "luno."
but not tonight. maybe tomorrow. i have to work in the morning.
ps - i'm listening to death from above 1979 - you're a woman, i'm a machine. i highly suggest it to anyone who really needs to rock the fuck out in a very short amount of time; it's rock and roll everclear. no, not to be confused with the actual band everclear, who rarely if ever actually "rock the fuck out." go grab "blood on our hands" or "little girl" or "pull out" or maybe even their cover of bloc party's excellent "luno."
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