Neverending String Dream 2008 Part 10

Too much chewing gum stuck to the roof of my mouth. My niece could see it and she didn't like it.

Tally: 10.

how come?

How come Jim Croce is so awful at making phone calls?

Dealings with Panhandlers

Hello.

Today, I inadvertently began a new approach to handling panhandlers, specifically those of the pseudo-well-off hustling variety.

As I left Subway, a nicely dressed man with sunglasses asked me "Hey bro, you got some change for me?"

To which I responded, "Sorry guy."

To which he replied, "Ass hat."

Further along on my walk, a slightly more shambly, but still hustly, guy asked, "Hey my man, you got a little change?"

"Sorry guy."

"Thanks a lot, you [couldn't understand]"

People hate being called "guy."

Olympic Fever!

I still got it! How about you?

Has anyone read up on the 1904 Summer Olympic Marathon? Its amazing. Read under the "Highlights" section:

The marathon was the most bizarre event of the Games. It was run in brutally hot weather, over dusty roads, with horses and automobiles clearing the way and creating dust clouds.

• The first to arrive was Frederick Lorz, who actually was just trotting back to the finish line to retrieve his clothes, after dropping out after nine miles. When the officials thought he had won the race, Lorz played along with his practical joke until he was found out shortly after the medal ceremony and was banned for a year by the AAU for this stunt, later winning the 1905 Boston Marathon.
• Thomas Hicks (a Briton running for the United States) was the first to cross the finish-line legally, after having received several doses of strychnine sulfate mixed with brandy from his trainers. He was supported by his trainers when he crossed the finish, but is still considered the winner. Hicks had to be carried off the track, and possibly would have died in the stadium, had he not been treated by several doctors.
• A Cuban postman named Felix Carbajal joined the marathon. He had to run in street clothes that he cut around the legs to make them look like shorts. He stopped off in an orchard en route to have a snack on some apples, which turned out to be rotten. The rotten apples caused him to have to lie down and take a nap. Despite falling ill to apples he finished in fourth place.
• The marathon included the first two black Africans to compete in the Olympics; two Tswana tribesmen named Len Tau (real name: Len Taunyane) and Yamasani (real name: Jan Mashiani). But they weren't there to compete in the Olympics, they were actually the sideshow. They had been brought over by the exposition as part of the Boer War exhibit (both were really students from Orange Free State in South Africa, but this fact was not made known to the public). Len Tau finished ninth and Yamasani came in twelfth. This was a disappointment, as many observers were sure Len Tau could have done better if he had not been chased nearly a mile off course by aggressive dogs.

Someone find me some more info on Andarin Carvajal!

Overheard In the Park Vol. 1

What prompted the priest to hastily say to the layman he was walking with, "You need to talk to your priest really soon!!!"

Why wasn't he his priest? Give me some context, commenters!

Neverending String Dream 2008 Part 9

Sorry guys. Another stupid post, but I have to keep track of this stuff. I had this dream again on Friday night. I forget the details but it was by far the scariest neverending stream dream ever. Probably the scariest dream that I've had since I was being chased by that animated wolf on a real-life pirate ship. Pre CGI.

This time, the string was firehose sized. Yuck, right??!???

Tally: 9.

The Missed Redux

I moved over the weekend. So here's a new ongoing series:

Things I won't miss about living in the Mt. Vernon Apartment: Today, I was accosted (that's bad, right? because it wasn't bad, just annoying) by a panhandler who said, "How about helping out a Led Zeppelin asshole with a dollar or two." I said, "I hate Led Zeppelin" and kept walking. He followed that by listing off other band names, hoping to strike the right chord [ha??]. Pink Floyd, Aerosmith, The Moody Blues...he continued until I was out of earshot, but in my dreamworld, he's still going.

Thing I'll miss about living in the Mt. Vernon Apartment: Going home to shave at lunchtime.

Neverending String Dream 2008 Part 8

2 months since a string dream incident. Until last night. Bye!!!!!!

more coffee madness

I'm no coffee buying beginner, but I must admit that I don't fully understood the entire scope of the Coffee World.

Anyhow, I've noticed that sometimes I pay $1.97. Sometimes $2.o3. Sometimes $2.16. For the same thing!

I finally got fed up with this and I asked, "What's the deal??!"

As it turns out, their coffee prices are listed on a sliding scale based on the experience of the barista. If a rookie barista pours, it's $1.97 and the prices just go up from there. Some seasoned vets charge up to $2.65!!!

That's screwed up.

So Sad To Say Goodbye

Hey everyone.

So, this weekend, I was without internet. To some hippy-dippy types, this would be a weekend dream-come-true.

I'm nervous about the internet. I've been borrowing the "Lakay" wireless connection for nearly a year now and it just disappeared this weekend. All of the other neighborhood connections are password protected. Its my recollection that the Lakay connection has disappeared for a long holiday weekend previously, but its always come back. This time, I'm nervous. Its Tuesday morning and there's no sign of it.

That said, I got even less done than I would on a typical weekend. I did cook a lot of muffins. And I did my best to remove my crappy first iron-on number attempt from my softball shirt. And I watched most of the first season of the Ashes To Ashes television program. And a bunch of Jennifer Connelly movies, unwittingly. But I didn't record any songs. And I didn't go to the swimming pool.

------------------

In other news, my across-the-street neighbors Sarah and Roddy moved to Washington DC this weekend. I never saw their apartment and they never saw mine. Roddy and I were roommates for a few months even a long time ago. There was always talk of casserole parties but I never took the initiative and now I'm immediately regretting it. I could really go for a casserole. I now know no one on my block except for the the two white dogs that I say hi to a lot and the man that I refused to hold the garage door for that one time. That man is either Leviness, Tolzman or Hamilton. For the longest time, I was happy that I didn't hold the door for him, but now, I'm feeling extra-sensitive and I hope its not too late to mend a possible very nice neighborhood friendship. After a while, you get sick of all your friends being just lowly law students. I just want to be buddies with the real deal!

What's worst is that I now have this sick feeling in my stomach that Sarah and Roddy were probably the proprietors of "Lakay."

So, Verizon and Comcast aside, what sort of high speed connection have all of you signed up for?

Movie Review: The Missed

WARNING: SPOILERS!

I know that I shouldn't be reviewing movies, but have you guys seen this The Mist movie? Man, its pretty crazy. It had been sitting at the apartment for a month or so, and I was feeling particularly fright-possible on Sunday night, so I went for it.

If you didn't know, this thing was based upon a Stephen King short story. Now, I'm not going to lie to you. I'm a member of the Stephen King Library. The Stand is still my favorite mini-series of all time. I signed up ten years ago and they sent me a free skeleton key chain. Since then, I've received every King book. And then once I received them all, they started sending me desk calendars and other stuff like that. Anything they could reasonably charge me (read: my mom) for, they sent me. I would un-sign up at this point, but at this point, I don't necessarily know how to do it.

So, I've got a bit of a vendetta against Mr. King. And then, a few years back, he started writing a monthly back-page column for my favorite magazine, Entertainment Weekly. At first, it seemed like an exciting idea, but it quickly became my most despised part of the magazine. Sure he'd talk up Lost, but then he'd waste his next breath on Jericho and muse about how Skeet Ulrich is one of America's most talented young actors. And then my blood pressure rises everytime I hear him mention his musical taste. Rockabilly that. Garage that. Driveby Truckers over here. Ryan Adams over there.

But the kicker is how often he refers to himself as "your uncle Stevie." Its something that I'd expect from my other least favorite Ste[ph/v]en, Steven Van Zandt. Fortunately, he already calls himself "Little Steven," so "Uncle Little Stevie" would be too much of a mouthful for even him.

So, anyhow, this movie was adapted for the screen and directed by Frank Darabont. Without Stephen King, this guy would be living in the gutter. He struck gold with the Shawshank Redemption. And then, he sorta made a movie out of The Green Mile. The rest of his credits read very similar to my own. If I wrote a draft for a new Indiana Jones movie, I'm sure George Lucas and Steven Spielberg (Number One Steven?) would reject it too. And I'm sure that I'd be bitter about it.

The Mist opens with a big-time storm and a bunch of trees falling down. And so, the next morning, the lead character (we'll call him Desperate Househusband, since I've never seen him before and he seems the type that's probably done a stint on Desperate Housewives) goes outside and him, his wife and little boy complain about all of the trees. One of them fell right onto their boathouse! They thought they had it bad, until the Desperate Househusband goes next door to find that a giant tree also fell onto Andre Braugher's BMW or some shit!

This is the point in the movie where I was hoping that I was about to watch two hours worth of this househusband walking around town checking out all the weird stuff that trees can fall on.

But that's not what it is. It turns out that Andre Braugher signed up to play another grumpy guy who's way too stuck in his ways. It appears that him and the DHH sorta hate each other. Lawsuits and stuff. But they let bygones be bygones, and the DHH lets AB tag along with him and his boy as they go to town to visit the supermarket. And then the househusband even tells the boy to hold Braugher's hand as they walked into the store.

This supermarket is filled to the brim with superstars! Marcia Gay Harden is all religiousy. The little man that plays Truman Capote when Philip Seymour Hoffman isn't available is there, and fortunately, he's good at shooting a gun. And then there's two of your favorite Hey, Its That Guy!s. This guy and that guy (here pictured with your favorite Hey, Its That Pilot!). Then, there's a bunch of other people.

Anyhow, they all get locked inside of this supermarket, because this big Mist has decided to roll into town and kill everyone. What's in the Mist? A lot of big insects. Who cares.

Anyhow, the desperate househusband is the first to discover that its a bunch of insects when he goes back into the store room to get his boy a blanket. Him and four other guys. One of them is killed. So, they come back into the main store. DHH tries to explain this to Andre Braugher and Andre Braugher flat out refuses to believe any of it. "You're making this up! You're playing a practical joke on me! Fuck you!" He doesn't care about the missing bagboy. He doesn't care about the bloody clothes. He doesn't care about the chunk of tentacle that DHH cut off of the giant squid that killed the bagboy. Fuck you!

Meanwhile, there are some soldiers in the supermarket. Shouldn't they be taking charge of the situation? Nope. Its all up to the househusband. Its not like they're painted as cowards or something and reluctant to help out. Its just that they showed them enter the store, but then the story just forgets about them, until the story decides that it wants one of them to have sex with one of the cashiers in the snack room.

Okay okay. So they hang out for a while. Capote shoots Marcia Gay Harden.

And then, the househusband decides that him, his boy, DHH's new love interest (perhaps an old flame?) and two old people are going to run out to his car and they're just gonna start driving and take it however far they can go! Capote was gonna come too, but he got eaten. Luckily, they were able to take his gun with them.

So, they keep driving until the fuel runs out. But its still misty! Rather than be killed by these insects, they decide (while the boy sleeps!) that they'll just shoot themselves. But they only have four bullets! Five people. Four bullets! "I'll figure something out."

So, the car has been stalled for nearly five minutes. There is no sign of the insects. But why take any chances? Let's just kill ourselves immediately. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Old person, old person, lady, boy. All dead!

Within seconds, the fog starts to clear a little bit and some Army tanks roll by. A rescue mission. All order has been restored! No more insects. DHH gets out of his car and cries his eyes out! How awful! "I killed my boy!"

Man, what a jerk.

Go see this movie!!!

My freezer and your freezer

Why isn't there a light in the freezer? What's in there that they don't want me seeing?

Youtube for Non-youtubers

Seeing as I still don't feel like typing much, I am occasionally to try to make you happy by showing you some video clips. This one makes me feel really good. Thanks to Laundre for showing it to me.



I guess I'll see you later.

my favorite SNL bit of all time

Hi everyone.

Most of you who read this have probably already been shown this video today, so this an anti-climatic blog post. But these posts are few and far between so I have to show you things that make me laugh when they do.

This sketch is called "Connie Stinson Talks" and stars Christopher Walken. I remember seeing it when it originally aired. The Fischer brothers and I were obsessed with it and our band Salad Days recorded an impromptu album ("Where Fresh Is The Taste") one night with songs that were littered with references to hot slices of stinkin' hog flesh.

Upon researching the sketch, I discovered that its never aired again since the original broadcast. I don't know why. Its a little longer than your typical sketch, but its not about Puerto Rican Day or anything.

Anyhow, there's one crappy video-dub of it online at this link . I've embedded it below. The quality is awful but its worth it, I hope.



Love,
Poor Poor Pitiful Me

p.s. here's a transcript for the hell of it.

A Series of Confessions

Hi America.

Remember last Halloween when you were leaving that pizza shop and found that unopened bag of fun-size Starbursts and Skittles on the sidewalk? I put those there for you.

And remember on Fat Tuesday, when you were a homeless man and you found that sealed box of Polish bow-tied kruschickis sitting on those steps? I figured you'd like those.

Oh, and remember when after that long, hard day of work, when you were dreading going home to clean your shower because you knew you were all out of that Scrubble Bubbles Automatic Shower Cleaner liquid? Well, I left some by that trash can in our joint garage for you. Hope it works better for you than it did for me.

And finally, to you, Garbage man. I hope my that my old Club didn't make that trash bag too heavy for you. Sorry I didn't leave the key, but I trust you'll find that any old key will work fine with it.

I'm glad I got that off of my chest.

Sports Talk

Hey everyone. I want to start a snarky sports talk radio show, but I'm having a hard time finding a loud-mouth, strongly opinionated guy named Mike. Any help?

Neverending String Dream 2008 Part 7

It was a blink and you'll miss it moment...

I'm sitting there. String comes out. I immediately turn to the woman sitting next to me and say, "Pull at this!" She did. It never ended. She said, "That's weird!"

And.....scene!

Neverending String Dream Tally 2008: 7

Songtown - Vol. 15 (Field Of Dreams)

Hi everyone. Welcome back to Songtown. I took a break a much needed break from songs.

New format, I'm not doing that block party listing of album/artist/year information anymore. Not today anyhow.

In fact, for the last month, I've forced myself to listen to only new music. I set up my iPhone to only play songs that qualify under these two conditions:

• added to iTunes in the past 3 months
• rating equals zero stars, which should mean that I'm unfamiliar with the songs.

Off course, occasionally, there was a Super Hit of the Seventies that I didn't realize that I knew simply by song title. So, those were the exceptions. Like when Andrew Gold's "Thank You For Being A Friend" popped on.



That's a great song. Find more than 13 seconds of the song, and you'll like it even more.

Anyhow, yesterday morning, I started listening to music the old way again. A big time shuffle of new stuff and all of my old personal favorites. Anyhow, I didn't realize how much I missed it. The first song that came on was this one by the Primary 5. Field of Dreams, its called, and I must say that I got fairly emotional over it.

Bye!

Neverending String Dream 2008 Parts 5 and 6

So, I forgot to tell you, but I had the string dream last week again. Forgettable circumstances.

And then, last night I had another one. This time, the string was coming from a tiny hole right behind my top two front teeth. By "top two" I mean literally the top two. Not my favorite two teeth. Although if I had to pick my favorite teeth, it would probably also be those two.

For the first time ever, I tried to cut the string with a pair of scissors. I knew it wouldn't totally solve the problem, but if I could cut it close enough so that it wouldn't be that noticeable to my tongue, I would have been fine with it. Of course, it was really hard to cut the string and for the most part, I didn't succeed. The string would fold horizontally along with the blades so it wouldn't cut. It was a similar feeling to when I was a young left-handed child attempting to use right-handed scissors.

There was also another sub-plot where a bunch of friends and I were running up the stairs of a 26 story building try to figure out why each level seemed so "dream-like." There was a narrator who was trying to convince us that it was a dream and that in order to wake up, we needed to jump off the building. No fucking way, dude! I wound up waking up by simply sleeping enough.

The narrator/kill yourself storyline was inspired by a popular television series with a title based on a popular "glam rock" song name. I won't tell you which show/song it was because it might spoil it if you ever decide to check it out.

This was not a cry for help. I'm fine!!!

Neverending String Dream Tally 2008: 6

Friday Quickfire #1

Hey guys. I just want to talk.

The girl behind me at Donna's ordered a bagel. As I was fixing up my coffee, I heard the barista ask the bagel girl the following question:

"Did we discuss putting cream cheese on your bagel?"

Anything goes!

Office Water Cooler #2

Topic Two: Let's say its raining outside. Since you left your umbrella at home, you want to put the hood of your sweatshirt up in order to shield yourself from the rain.

How do you respond when a coworker says, "Man, when you put your hood up, you look even more like a stalker!" ?



Discuss below.

One Step over the Finkeline

At what point do I decide that Doctor Finkelstein or his older brother have crossed that doctor/patient no-no line?


Listen here. Its not much.

Catching up with the Finkmeister

Dr. Finkelstein called again today. Sounded like his office was pretty busy. He barely had a chance to ask me if I had taken my meds before his big brother got on the line to say, "Who dis?"

Of course, I responded, "I don't know. Who dis?" Then he hung up.

Conversations With Dr. Finkelstein

I didn't do much on Saturday night, but here's what did happen.

[Ring...ring.]

Call #1 (8:38 PM EST)

Me: Hello?

Kid Stranger: [rustling]

Me: Hello?

Kid Stranger: Who this?

Me: Chris.

Kid Stranger: [rustling]

Me : [click]

Call #2 (8:40 PM EST)

[I don't answer.]

Voicemail from Kid Stranger: Chris? [click]

Call #3 (8:41 PM EST)

Me: Hello?

KS: Hello?

Me: I think you have the wrong number.

KS: Is this Chris?

Me: Yes

KS: Chris, this is your doctor calling.

Me: Okay.

KS: I was calling to, uh, tell you, uh, that you have a high blood pressure.

Me: Okay

KS: And that's not good.

Me: I know.

KS: [rustling]

Me: Okay, well, thanks for letting me know.

KS: What? [click]

Call #4 (8:42 PM EST)

Me: Hello?

KS: Chris?

Me: Yes.

KS: Hi. This is your secret agent calling. Someone filed a complaint on the internet saying that you were getting phone calls from an unknown number.

Me: Yeah, I was, but it was just my doctor, so its cool.

KS: No, we're sending some agents over to your house. They'll be there in five minutes.

Me: Okay.

KS: [click]

Call #5 (8:46 PM EST)

Me: Hello?

KS: Chris, this is your special agent calling again. Those agents aren't coming anymore.

Me: Oh, okay.

KS: The police are surrounding your house because someone told them that you have a gun.

Me: What?

KS: You need to come outside with the gun in the next thirty minutes or they're going to burn down your house.

Me: Really? I should get outside, I guess.

KS: Yes. If you come out with the gun, you will only get four years in jail.

Me: Okay, that seems like a fair deal.

KS: Yes, you need to go outside.

Me: Okay, I better get going.

KS: [click]

Call #6 (8:49 PM EST) and Call #7 (8:51 PM EST)

Listen to them simultaneously overtop of each other



Call #8 (9:15 PM EST)




-----------------

And thus concluded Saturday's chat with Dr. Finkelstein.

BONUS Sunday Chat!!!

Call #9 (3:38PM EST)

Me: Hello?

Dr. Finkelstein: Chris?

Me: Yes.

Dr. Finkelstein: Chris, this is your doctor calling.

Me: Dr. Finkelstein?

Dr. Finkelstein: Yes. I was calling to tell you that there's a medicine that you can get that will help you with your crack addiction.

Me: I'm interested in that. Where can I get it?

Finkelstein's assistant in the background: Walgreen's.

Dr. Finkelstein: Walgreen's.

Me: Cool. I'll head there now.

Finkelassistant: Get two of them.

Dr. Finkelstein: Make sure you get two of them, because you'll need a lot.

Me: Thanks, doc.

Dr. Finkelstein: Just make sure you take two of them every night.

Me: Okay.

Dr. Finkelstein: And make sure you have them with a glass of water!

Me: Okay, thanks, Doc.

Dr. Finkelstein: [click]

Call #10 (6:17PM EST)

Me: Hey, doc.

Dr. Finkelstein: [click]

Office Water Cooler #1

Topic One: How do you respond if a co-worker follows their sneeze with an "Owwwww!!!!!"

Me, I just ignore it.

Discuss below.

About Last Night's Dream

Last night, I had a dream. It was obviously inspired by Oscar Night, although I can't explain why it happened two nights after the Oscars.

I was in a diner and I noticed Jack Nicholson sitting by himself. Someone had told me earlier in the dream that Jack was super-approachable and that he'd probably love for me to sit down and have a cup of coffee with him. Add that to the fact that everyone else was oblivious that he was there, and I knew that I had to go have a chat with him.

So, I worked my way around the perimeter of the diner to allow myself enough time to collect my thoughts and figure out what my opener was going to be. As I approached his table, who walks into the diner but Tom Hanks!!! Nobody noticed him either. He walks toward me, trying to look inconspicuous. I wanted to play it cool and didn't want to fawn over him, so I decided just to give him a head nod and a tiny greeting.

But instead, I accidentally screamed, "Helllllllllooooooooo Mr. Haaaaaanks!!!!" at the top of my lungs. He gave me a dirty look and rushed past me as swarms of diner patrons start chasing him.

What's more is that Nicholson looked disgusted and shook his head at me.

Songtown - Vol. 14 (Since She Started To Ride)

Artist: Jonathan Richman
Song: Since She Started To Ride
Album: Jonathan Goes Country
Year: 1990
Download



Hello Song Lovers!

I'm sorry I haven't written about songs recently. As I had previously explained, this feature was starting to make me hate songs. I'm still fully recovered and loving songs again, but I'm going to give it a go just because you deserve it.

Today, I'm going to listen to this Jonathan Richman song over and over until I've decided that I've typed enough.

Do you remember that scene in Pee-Wee's Big Adventure where Pee-Wee has to rescue all of those animals from the burning pet store? First off, do pet stores really sell monkeys? Second off, if you're like me, you've never commiserated more with a movie character than when Pee-Wee continually runs past the snakeaquarium every time he goes to grab another pet. He momentarily stops, sneers and then runs past. But you can tell that he's resigned to his fate that he's going to have to eventually save them too. So after Pee-Wee and the monkey bring every other creature out to the sidewalk, Pee-Wee heads back into the store to face off with destiny. [As an aside, is destiny, by definition, a positive thing? or am I correct in assuming that there can be nightmareish destinies, too?] Pee-Wee emerges from the store with snakes flowing from both hands and does a perfect cartoon-like twirly faint to the ground. Later, a fireman wakes him up and calls him a hero or something.

This is similar to my experience with Jonathan Richman. Except replace the "worst nightmare" tone with a bed-time fairytale type scenario. I didn't know much about him in 1997 or 1998 or some other year. All I know was how awesome the front cover of "Surrender To Jonathan" was.



Every time that I went to Best Buy, I'd browse through every rack in the CD section, I'd flip past this album and give a little smirk. I knew that I'd inevitably need to buy this album, but for now, I had other purchases to make. And so we did our dance for a few months, until finally it had reached the top of my purchase queue. And what a rewarding purchase it was. This one is Top Ten album in my life. Most fans tend to like the Modern Lovers stuff the most, but I don't understand how this couldn't not be anyone's favorite. Every time I listen to it, I do a little fainty twirl and fall prostrate to the ground.

So, the song that I picked to muse about today doesn't even come from "Surrender" so why am I going on so much about it? I don't know. That's the Origins part of the story.

I sat on this album for a few years and didn't explore much else. I bought a few albums, but I never really listened to them. In 2000, I found Gram Parsons and that's when my love affair with country music (aside from Wilco's A.M.) really went into full bloom. So, I did the country thing and a few years later, I decided that I needed to finish my Jonathan collection and I was thrilled to find that he had an album called "Jonathan Goes Country." Could there have been a better idea? Not to me.

[As an aside. I don't know the proper usage of quotes, underlines or italics anymore.]

"Since She Started To Ride" epitomizes Jonathan for me. It seems that Jonathan's character has lost his love to a horse. She'd just much rather be out on the farm "grooming and graining. " God, this is poetry. I've emboldened some real choice lines:

She's got a brown suntan starting just above her collar
Her lower arms they're brown, but the rest is kinda pale
She'd buy Betadine if she only had a dollar
And she'd live out in the pasture if she only had a tail.

And no I don't see her much since she started with horses
No I don't see her much since she started to ride.

Well her jeans they get like a wet saddle blanket
And her boots are like you'd figure
And her car is full of hay
Horses, humans if she had to rank it
You'd bet on they that canter
And them that need fly spray

And you see I don't see her much since she started with horses
No I don't see her much since she started to ride

Candle and fender, barrel and mane
Don't see her much since she started to train
Cannon bone, knee bone, forearm and arm
I don't see her much when she heads for the barn
And she's so satisfied when she's riding and training
She must just love that smell of the barn I would say
She's so satisfied when she's grooming and graining
And she's tired in the evening and she's gone in the day

And no I don't see her much since she started with horses
No I don't see her much since she started to ride.

What is a betadine? I think that was in a Blue Angels thing.

Also of note is how he leads the players into the Solo section..."Go boys...tell 'em all about it!"

Now, I'm not saying that he was the first to use some words of encouragement to push his band into a solo, but when I first Jonathan do this, I knew that I would have to do the same in nearly every song I'd write from there on out. "Michael Junior Gittings on the guitar!" That sort of thing.

Hey, look. It was great talking with you.

TiVo DeTermination

Hello World.

So, if you know anything about me, its probably that I love television and that TiVo is a sacred golden god that I bow to nightly. I've been TiVoing for about three years now and over that time, my love of television has only grown. If you don't know much about Tivo other than that its a hard disk VCR, one of the biggest perks is setting up a "Season Pass" for your favorite series. The TiVo will automatically record every episode of said season. First run. Repeats. You decided what it does.

I won't say how many series that I have Season Passes set up for, but I'll say that its a lot. And I can't say that all of these series are my favorites. But I watch a lot of television late at night and early in the morning and since I have the disk space to record a lot of junk, why not fill it up with as many options as possible?

So working under that philosophy, before last night, I've only had the occasion of deleting one Season Pass. Jericho. This show just tried my patience. It was a prime time soap opera trying to mask itself as this intense thoughtful government conspiracy. I didn't buy it. But I gave it ten episodes to prove me wrong. It didn't, so I deleted it. Of course, after a few months, I got bored and decided to download the rest of the season and watched them all across two or three days. Now, I've been TiVoing and watching Season Two, which is trying my patience even more and could very well be the first Season Pass that I delete twice.

But first. I'm deleting my Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles Season Pass. I knew the moment had come when I realized that my favorite character was played by Brian Austin Green.




Apparently, there are people who think that the Terminator story has one of the deepest seeded mythologies in the history of Hollywood. I enoyed me some T2: Judgment Day, but I've fallen asleep every time I've tried to watch the first one and I break a household object every time I try to watch this show. I could care less if John Connor saves us from the machines in twenty years.

Its just dumb. The characters are stupid. After eight hours, you'd think that someone would have to seem interesting. That's all it takes for me. If I can look forward to the screen time of just one character, I'm with you until the bitter end. But there's nothing here.

Last week was when I really started having my doubts. Brian Austin Green is from the future. He meets a guy in the future who he decides that he needs to kill. So, he jumps back to the past (our time) and kills this guy. But even after he kills the guy, he's still having "memories" of the future where he's hanging out with this guy. Paradox! Its a paradox!

If this was Lost, the writers would be wanting us to ask, "Why does this dead guy still appear in the future world?" The answer to that question would be an important piece to the overall puzzle. The Terminator writers are just hoping that we don't notice. I noticed! Paradox!!

But, what's my least favorite part of the show? The Sarah Connor narration. I tune in and out of it when it starts because I know its pointless drivel about how special her boy is. The writers want us to think its poignant, but if you catch yourself listening to it, you'll just hear something like, "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. When I die, I want to be buried in the earth."

I'll starting writing about songs again soon.

Things I Overheard Yesterday - Vol. 2

So, it wasn't yesterday, but it was Friday, which is really close to yesterday.

Before running off to a little dinner party, I stopped in the local liquor store to buy some bottles of something. The store's stock boy opened the door for me as a Sammy Hagar-ish type song started playing over the store radio. I said thanks and I thought that I was probably done with him. I picked out my beer, and headed to the register. I walked past the stock boy again, but I didn't make eye contact with him. After I had passed him, he said [to me?] "I think this was in a Blue Angels thing." I don't know who he was talking too, but I was determined to have it not be so I ignored it. I continued with my transaction. Thirty seconds later, another guy came in and before he even got over the threshold, the stock boy said, "Yeah. This was definitely in a Blue Angels thing." This time, he was definitely talking to the new guy, but the new guy ignored him as I did.

Here's your quiz:

1. What sort of "thing" do the Blue Angels do? Are they the flip-floppy plane guys?
2. Was it really Sammy Hagar?
   
3. Was he talking to me?
4. Why did he start that conversation with the other guy as if they had been talking about it previously?
5. Why did the other guy just ignore him?
6. Before I arrived, why was the stock boy standing halfway outside of the store trying to catch the rain?
   
7. Was this in a Blue Angels thing?
   

Neverending String Dream 2008 Part 4

Okay, short update. I had a dangerous string dream on Saturday night. It wasn't gum, or string or toothpicks. I don't know what it was, but it was actually attached to my gum between two of my top front teeth. It was a little piece of turkey wish-boney type material that extended down a little further than my teeth. I pulled it and it slowly extended itself. This was a tough piece of turkey wish-boney material, so it took a lot of effort. I did break a piece off at once, but alas, I still kept trying to get rid of all of it. Everytime I pulled, it felt like I was at risk of pulling the entire top of my mouth off.

Neverending String Dream Tally 2008: 4

Things I Overheard Yesterday - Vol. 1

Yesterday, I was walking to Quizno's and I walked passed two middle aged women smoking on steps of a church (St. James Something Or Another.) They seemed like they were talking about some serious shit. One lady left and either said, "I'm so glad I found Grace at St. James" or "I'm so glad I found grace at St. James."

The other one woman (Grace??) responded, "I know."

Anybody know these ladies?

Give Me A Tropical Contact High

Some of my favorite websites have a section called "Random Notes" or something like that, where they just list off some blurbs. Typically, its baseball, music or movie related. But I'm going to turn this thing on its head and only write about tropical things. And phrase everything in the form of a question.

• Is there any more annoying movie trivia factoid than "Johnny Depp based his Pirates of the Caribbean character off of Keith Richards"? At what point does it stop being trivia and just become common knowledge? Get me to that day.
• Speaking of the Caribbean, did you know that Billy Ocean also released alternative versions of "Caribbean Queen" called "European Queen" and "African Queen"?
• Did you know about this?

Okay, that's all I have.

Dream Diary!

Okay, so I didn't dream about string, gum or tiny toothpicks last night, nor do I know if its appropriate to post dreams about Heath Ledger quite yet, but I'm going to give this to all of you, anyhow.

Last night's dream was obviously influenced by this news story regarding Terry Gilliam's next film, [The] Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus. If you didn't know, Ledger was filming this when he died, thus giving us a new addition to The Curse of Terry Gilliam. So, yeah, its now being reported that Jude Law, Johnny Depp and Colin Farrell are all going to fill in to complete the role started by Ledger. This is all made possible due to the complex sci-fi fantasy nature of the plot.

So, about the dream. I was working on a new docu-style TV show. The premise had something to do with me researching instances in entertainment where dead people were credited as playing a role posthumously. That doesn't nearly explain the entire premise. As an example, a dead guy was credited as playing drums on Rufus Wainwright's debut album. That's not actually true, so don't research it, but my dream told me it was true. As it turns out, Rufus has worked with a lot of dead guys.

Okay, this is going nowhere fast. I got a sneak peak at the set of Dr. Parnassus and it turns out that the reports that Ledger had filmed any significant scenes for this film were vastly over-exaggerated. In fact, he had only filmed but one or two tiny scenes. In order to save face, the producers had arranged to have Ledger's body exhumed. They threw him into a blue bodysuit and were in the process of filming a bunch of shots of Ledger shooting around on a zip line. I can't vouch for the authenticity of this story, but if this movie comes out and there's a bunch of zip line scenes, be prepared to be thoroughly creeped out and possibly vomit.

So, that was probably not an appropriate story to tell.

Neverending String Dream 2008 Part 3

Look out Music City! 'Cause I'm here and I ain't never leavin'!

I don't have much to write about today, so I decided to open with a quote from one of the greatest movies of all time, The Thing Called Love, starring Rivery Phoenix, Samantha Mathis, Sandra Bullock and either Dylan McDermott or Dermot Mulroney. They all move to Nashville or Memphis (which one is the Music City?) to make it big in the country music business and to stalk Trisha Yearwood. River is a little reckless, as it turns out, and he may or may not die or end up in a wheelchair for a portion of the movie. I remember wanting to sing with Samantha Mathis. At one point, the two blond haired singers go up on top of a building top and scream that line that I typed up at the top there. If you were here, I'd mock scream it for you in their funny southern draw. They had goofy fun doing it, so when I want some goofy fun, I'm gonna do it for sure.

So, I love this movie but I haven't seen it since the mid-nineties, so maybe I don't like it. I loved it even before I loved country music. So, now, I'll either deem it inauthentic or I'll think its even better. It was worthy enough to receive "Director's Cut" treatment, which I own, but its gone un-open for the last 2 years.

So, yeah...I had this dream last night that didn't include string or rope or bubble gum, but did include tiny miniature toothpicks that were stuck all up in my teeth, gums and tongue. I kept pulling them out, but there was no end in sight. In the previous dreams, I'd tried to hide the string or gum, but this time, I complained a lot about these miniature toothpicks and people seemed pretty sympathetic, but no one offered up any good advice as to how to get rid of them. They hurt! I can't recall any of the details because I was too busy getting my stuff in order to go vote for my coworker Elliot (his platform: "First thing I'd do is close a lot of stuff.")

Speaking of which...I got to work at 8:45AM this morning. Earlier than anyone else. So, I'm trying to decide which excuse I'd rather leave at 4PM because of...

• a) I'll lie and say that I got to work at 8AM
• b) I'll lie and say that I haven't voted yet
• c) I'll just leave.

Thoughts? Can anyone else think of a third name that would complete the Golden Trilogy of Boring but Similar Long Names alongside Dermot and Dylan?

Neverending String Dream Tally 2008: 3

Songtown - Vol. 13 (He'd Be A Diamond)

Artist: The Bevis Frond
Song: He'd Be A Diamond
Album: New River Head
Year: 1990
Download



So, there's something sad that I've realized recently. I've written about twelve of my favorite songs so far, but as I look back over them, I feel like I never want to hear any of them ever again. The same goes for all of the songs that the Egg Babies have ever covered. Whenever these songs pop up on the iPod, I immediately skip to the next track. This is sad, right? Look what I've done to myself.

Anyhow, here's to another one down the drain...

As is a recurring theme, I first heard "He'd Be A Diamond" because Teenage Fanclub recorded it as a b-side for their "I Don't Want Control Of You" single. With your assumption deemed correct that I think this song is the bomb and intercourse, I obviously had to track down the original.

Thus, I found the Bevis Frond. I can't say that I like the Bevis Frond very much. I've had their album New River Head (their "masterwork") for seven or eight years now, yet this is still the only song that has found its way onto my iPod. I've read that Mr. Bevis Frond, Nick Saloman, is considered Britain's answer to Robert Pollard. A prolific songwriter with a ton of output, albeit with most of it teetering on the wrong side of the self-indulgent line. With a lot more psychedlic guitar solos.

But it doesn't matter what else he's written, because "He'd Be A Diamond" is a song that he can hang his hat on for the rest of eternity. Its a song filled with an endless stream of metaphors that describe the idea of being in a relationship that's run its course. No matter how hard you try to let bygones be bygones, there are some things that you just can't keep in the past. ("When you turn your back, you still see what's behind you/When you start up fresh, you still think of days gone by"). At the focus of the song, here's this dude who's had too many chances. He treats his girl like crap, and uses her for beer, dope and her ironing prowess. Every time she cuts him loose, he wins her back by promising to be a diamond next time. Speaking of promises, I promise you that this will be the first and last time that you'll hear words like "when you blow your nose, it still gets blocked up and runs" and be totally moved by them.

This is really great, isn't it??!? And I still love it!

Neverending String Dream 2008 Part 2

So, I'm really sorry that I've been out of touch recently. I hope to start telling more stories really soon. For now, I have to concentrate on coughing and feeling hot.

That said, I couldn't sleep very well last night. Or at least, I slept exceptionally well from 8:30PM to 1:30AM, only to wake up and become all tossy and turny. After a few hours of that, I made it back to sleep, only to experience the second instance of the NEVERENDING STRING DREAM saga in 2008.

A group of friends and I decided to take The Bomb and Intercourse Bus Trip to somewhere in Pennsylvania. And against popular belief, this wasn't some sex romp trip. Just an unfortunately named wholesome trip to some rest stop/mall. It seemed like a food court at a mall, except the prices and tastes were a bit more of the rest stop quality.

Lo and behold, it turned out that I had some gum stuck in between my teeth and I spent much of the second half of the dream pulling it out. What was significant about this dream was that for once, someone else realized what was going on. I don't know who she was, but she picked up on it and pointed out this gum problem to me. I wasn't as embarassed as I had previously thought that I would be.

Alright, I just had to tell you.

Neverending String Dream Tally 2008: 2

Songtown - Vol. 12 (The Glutton Of Sympathy)

Artist: Jellyfish
Song: The Glutton of Sympathy
Album: Spilt Milk
Year: 1993
Download



I remember getting really excited in 1993 when Taco Bell announced that they were sponsoring the first annual Battle of the Bands to be broadcast on some network station. When the night came around, I settled in front of the TV, with my Fruit By The Foot or mayonnaise sandwiches or whatever I was into at the time, and was thoroughly wowed that I was finally witnessing one of these battles. I had heard about these battles and I longed to be involved in one on day, but for now, I was happy to just be a tertiary part of the process.

To me, it seemed like this was a week long event or at least a few hours, but after my research, it appears that it was all kept with a 60 minute (live?) telecast. I think there were four bands total, with current Recher Theatre faves Too Skinnee J's going heads up against the Noise Boys. I remember liking the Noise Boys more, but I remember very little about them. I can guarantee that they weren't these guys. Well, Too Skinnee J's pulled it out in the end and I wasn't all that disappointed because I thought they were a lot of fun.

The show must have been a royally unpopular one, as this ended up being the first and last annual Battle. No one ever told me, so I continued to tune in year after year until the invent of the internet in hopes that it'd pop back on any second now. I might have even gone as far as to probe a Taco Bell employee as to the future of this world changing event. The irony of the whole thing is that Fox is now presenting their search for the Next Great American Band, and I could care less.

Well, back to the point. As a treat, they had established pop/rock group Jellyfish perform at the half-way point. I had heard of them, but had never explored them because I stereotyped them as being music for clowns, based on their clothing. Well, anyhow, they played. Their lead singer was their drummer. And he was standing up and playing the drums too! Unheard of. I was hooked. I told myself that they were going to be my favorite band from that point on. But instead, I resisted picking up either of their albums and it was only when I got the record store job did I finally invest in them.

I'm not sure how my 13 year old self would have felt about these albums. I would like to say that he would have loved them even more than I do currently, but that might be wishful thinking. Either way, I can't really imagine a way how Jellyfish would have vastly improved my life between the years of 1993 and 2005.

The two Jellyfish albums represent absolute perfect pop music production. The vocals are all pitch perfect. There's no flubs to be heard in any of the instrument takes. No signs that these guys aren't Jesus himself playing some powerpop tunes.

Of course (and oddly), the perfection can be a bit of a turn-off. There's a certain charm to the occasional screw-up, so the sheen could possibly drive you nuts. Matthew Sweet does this same thing, but he winds up pissing me off much more than Jellyfish. Sometimes I just want to scream when I listen to a lot of his stuff.

Striving for recording perfection isn't for everyone. First and foremost, you have to be capable of creating perfection. Matthew Sweet and a lot of other mid-nineties powerpoppers aren't actually capable of perfection, but they try and it turns out more frustrating then anything. To me, "Powerpop" is defined as "a failed attempt at perfection" so that's why I typically avoid that term like that plague. Jellyfish, however, totally rocked it. I don't know how they're holding up these days, but Brian Wilson probably went nuts because he was chasing perfection. So my second point is just that...be careful, guys!

Anyhow, here's my favorite track of theirs, "The Glutton of Sympathy." Perhaps the lead vocal might be a little too dramatic for you, but maybe not? That said, I challenge you to pin point even one note or beat that sounds like its out of place or out of time.

Random Temperature Generator

Welcome Back Everyone!

I'm convinced that my Mac's weather widget is playing mind games with me. Now that I'm adult, I've decided to start dressing responsibly in the morning dependent on what the forecast is. The easiest way to check said forecast is via this widget. All I need to do is drag my cursor to the top right corner of the screen and bam, there's my temperature.

Except, yesterday it told me it was 48 degrees out, so I left the gloves, scarf and hat home. It felt more like 28 degrees when I got outside.

And this morning, I was bracing for the promises 22 degrees, so I bundled up pretty well, only to look like a chump when I got outside to a temperature well above freezing.

What good is this thing? I should probably check to see if it still thinks I live in Baltimore.

Songtown - Vol. 11 (Perfume)

Artist: Spin The Spin
Song: Perfume (demo)
Album: Mike's Demos
Year: 2000
Download


Spin The Spin was perhaps the most well-planned band that's ever existed in history. I had been recording my little tapes as Twentieth Century Styles. Mark and Mike's work in The Spontaneous Gyrations in high school was by far the largest musical influence in my life and I'm not sure that the 20thCS would have ever happened without them.

So, it made sense that the three of us would get together to work on a project that Mark had deemed "The Cream of the Pop." We called it Spin The Spin, inspired by the name of an arcade game that Mark, our friend Steve and maybe Mike had played at Towson Town Center. The object of the game was to simply spin the spin.

And so we started writing. The three of us occasionally got together and just jammed on three acoustics, recording every last second of it. Add that to the feverish song writing pace that we were all working at on our own, we ended up having a pool of over a hundred songs or song snippets to work from. We eventually got our buddy Gary to play drums, who ironically would usurp all three of us in songwriting prowess and pace.

We played five or six shows and partially recorded our debut album before Mark moved off to Brooklyn. And now I have stacks and stacks of these song bits saved on my hard drive. Our debut album would have been comprised of three or four songs from each of us. We had recorded the basic tracks for Mark's and my songs, but we never had a chance to start Mike's songs. He wound up recording and releasing "Wanderlust" and "Sing Me A Mountain" on his one and only solo album, but one track, "Perfume," never made its way out to the public. Unfortunately for all of you, this track was the cream of the Spin The Spin cannon. [I've decided to stop italicizing Spin The Spin.]

Fortunately for you, this demo of "Perfume" does exist. Its a short rendition of it. We wound up doing the chorus a few times, and maybe there was a solo or a third verse too.

It was around this time that I remember Mike complaining a lot about how the Goo Goo Dolls had began one of their hit songs with the word "And." He thought that was totally improper and stupid. And what? Who cares about the second part, when you never even told us the first part? I eventually explained it to him that the song was probably a continuation of their last song, as they sounded exactly alike.

Anyhow, the second line in this song ends with an "and," and I think its unbelievably creative. I don't know if he did to set it up as a juxtaposition to the Goo Goo way. As a "Fuck you, Goo Goo Dolls. This is how you do 'and.'" But it would make for amazing lore if he had.

I would rank this song up at the top of the Gittings-penned tunes with "Teacher's Pet," one that will show up on the next Water School album. The melody is really well-defined and clever. And the hooks! Its littered with them. "Fine fine fine....Mine mine mine." "Doo do-do-do doo, doo doo doo..."

This is the one aspect that always suffered in our Water School songs, but we lacked an iconic Sweet Child O' Mine guitar riff, or a Hey Jude "na na na" sing along. "Perfume" would have taken care of the latter, at least.

And try to tell me that you don't smile and snicker a bit at the end of the first verse when he sings "I got high just from standing next to you, sniffing the fumes," and then immediately clarifies them as being "the perfume fumes." I love it!

I have no clue what he's singing about in the second verse but I bet's it sexual. Something about a dentist, embroidery and a tiger.

I should now tell you that this song brings real joy to my heart because its the closest thing that I have to Gooseberry Soda. If I didn't know better, I would think that Mike might have produced the Gooseberry song. Really, its creepy how similar the two songs are. If only Mike would have sung about that black snake in the quarry.

Life After People follow-up

In conclusion, if Life After People was a question, the answer would be "Yes."

In ten thousand years, after corrosion brought down the bridges and buildings and whatever concrete-disease tore apart the concrete stuff, all of your favorite metropolitan areas would be grassed over and you couldn't even tell that other stuff used to be there. The oceans would be plentifully stocked with marine life. The Hoover Dam and the Great Pyramid would last for eons and Mt. Rushmore might just last forever.

During the final 45 minutes, the special finally divulged the fate of your household cats. Well, as with the dogs, if they were able to make it out of their homes, they'd be thriving eating tiny birds and field mice. And in 150 years, while dogs have resorted back to their primitive wolf ways and formed bear-killing gangs...your kitties would take up in skyscrapers, "and if you want to get really imaginative, I guess cats could follow the path of the flying squirrel and start gliding through the sky." !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I began with the conclusion, so now I don't know where to go.

I wish....

....That someone would rip apart my writing like this.

ISO Geeky Scientists

So, I was thinking of submitting this entry in Persian but reality got the better of me.

Monday night, I'm embarrassed to say, I TiVo'd my first ever program on the History Channel. It was a two hour special called Life After People. I had seen a magazine ad for it which featured a cougar (like a cat) lying on a grown-over Brooklyn Bridge. I tried and I tried, but it seems like no one has submitted this image to the internet yet. Anyhow, I was dying to know how this cougar got onto this bridge.

I started watching last night and I've made it just beyond the hour mark so far. The idea of the show, obviously, is to show what would happen to Earth if one day all of the humans died off. As per usual, there was some dramatic narrator taking us through this trip, but the narrated bits would be interspersed with some really awkardly geeky scientists making cute jokes and explaining why the nuclear power plants would shut off as part of a fail-safe measure after just a day or two, but how the Hoover Dam would keep doing what its doing for six months to a year, because that's a real well-oiled machine that they have set up out there. The unsettling part about these scientist segments would be how the special effects team would make them appear out of thin air and then disappear once they were done with what they were saying. These scientists were creepily ghostly.

Apparently, its bad news for our dogs, first and foremost. The largest blow to their survival rate would be that most of them would be locked inside of our homes, so after they finished the loaf of bread that you left on the counter, they'd be goners. Or most of them would be. These scientists lead me to believe that a good amount of these dogs would decide to jump through windows or figure out the intricate lock/handle mechanisms on our doors. Its additional bad news if your dog has a short or a really long snout. Apparently, they can't fend for themselves. Your best bet is to have a medium size dog with medium sized features.

They riffed some more about animals. "The big question is whether the zoo animals would figure out a way to get out of their cages." They lauded the pigeon's ability to make ends meet. They said nothing would kill the immortal cockroach. They'd eat books and boxes for the rest of their existence (where existence equals forever!!!!!!).

After they went through the motions with the animals (thankfully neglecting to tell me of the fate of the reptile), they moved onto nature and how the weeds would take over the streets, wildfires would kill Rome and Chicago, trees would grow on the tops of houses and Amsterdam and London would be overcome by water.

The geekiest of all scientists was doing his interview by an abandoned outdoor staircase that had had weeds growing on it for nearly 20 years. Sure it was pretty ratty looking, but it was still obviously a staircase. But not after 200 years! Oh no. Geekman says that it would be "nearly impossible" to recognize this as a staircase. Yeah, except when you trip over it and bust your face up on step 4.

Anyhow, I guess I sorta enjoyed what I've seen so far, but my suspension of disbelief is teetering on unsuspension. They never gave a plausible reason for what would kill off the entire human race overnight, yet would leave every other animal species intact. This wasn't painted as a slow kill, because every home still had a household pet and a loaf of bread on the counter, so that discounts some sort of man-only disease.

So, I'm sorta dumb about Chernobyl and thermo nuclear war and global warming and asteroids, but what could possibly kill us all? Maybe we weren't killed? Maybe we were all abducted, because they didn't show any of our dead bodies. Sure, they showed the same clip of the coyote ripping apart that poor dead dear over and over, but when are they going to get clued in to the fact that they can eat these billions of dead people dudes, too?

Thus I ask you, dear readers, what would the circumstances be of such a life after people because I just don't get it.

I'll let you know if they explain it in the second hour.

Journey To The Center Of Charlottesville

Its a funny thing what happens to me as soon as I set foot in this Water School van. All I can think about is writing this blog. Every little thing that is said or is witnessed is immediately stored in the RAM of my mind:

• Adam makes his first ever "That's what she said" joke and I feel like he's finally one of us.
• Eric uncharacteristically [and jokingly] says "Hello ladies!" when some lacrosse girls jog passed the van as we've stopped for gas.
• Mike buys a bottle of Diet Mountain Dew with a cap that feels like its been glued on. Eric and I loosened it up, before Adam finally cracked it open.

And here comes my problem. I don't want to say "RAM" again, but my brain doesn't have much RAM, so once I had these three facts stored away, my mind starts steaming and I get dizzy. Its a real condition and I don't know how to stop it.

Plenty of interesting stuff happens to me day in and day out, outside of this van, but I never really feel the need to document it. But as soon as Eric says, "Who packed this thing?," something he says nearly every time that we load up the van with equipment, I knew that I needed to get this all down on paper. And really, I don't know what I'd do without this urge. If I didn't do the tour diary on the first and last Water School coast to coast tour, I would have had a nervous breakdown upon returning home and we wouldn't even be having this conversation right now.

So, here we are, 45 minutes into the trip, just outside of DC. The anticipation says that we're about to hit rush hour traffic and spend the next hour or so sitting still. Adam had a motion to take the long way 'round, which I seconded, but we were locked in a stalemate when Eric and Mike wanted to just go through DC. After a few tie breaking phone calls, we decided on DC. Of course, as we're the area, Mike has just given us the kiss of death by saying, "I don't want to jinx anything, but traffic's looking pretty great!" Sitting around should commence in t minus two paragraphs.

This is the first time that the band has left the comfy confines of Baltimore since early 2006 and the first time since Adam joined the band. Our last of town jaunt was to New York City for a pretty successful show with the Oranges Band. That afternoon as we waited around for two hours for him to arrive to pick us up, we had decided it was time to kick our old drummer, Matt, out of the band. On the drive home, we decided it was as opportune time as ever so we told him then. In We immediately knew it wasn't as opportune as we thought, since we still had about 2 hours left in our trip. Eric pretended to sleep, as Mike and I just made awkward glances at each other.

Stuck in traffic.

How did all of you feel about oral presentations when you were in high school or college? I dreaded them. There were a few classes that on day one, when I received the syllabus, I read that there'd be an oral presentation at the end of the semester. I'd immediately freak out, even though I knew that it was still 4 months away. Then I'd do everything I could to keep it out of my mind, only to find myself waking, crying, screaming in the middle of the night. This is also how I feel about dying.

And driving the band van. I've been in the driver's seat one time since we returned from tour in 2004. I was never good at it, but when you're doing 8 hour drives everyday, each of the four of you need to pull your weight. That said, its already been hinted that we're all going to do some driving on this trip. Gimme a break! No way, bro! You don't want me driving. Especially in a populated area. So, I've been making sure to tell Mike that he's a really good driver every so often, in hopes that he gets a sense of pride from it and wants to do it for the rest of the way. If we can keep him in the driver's seat for the entire trip to Mono Loco [did I mention that we're playing a taco restaurant?], then there's no way that it'll require three drivers to make it 2 and a half hours to get home. Plus I'm going to get trashed on margaritas just for good measure.

And so you have it. We'll see if there's a part two to this or not.

Songtown - Vol. 10 (Eanie Meany)

Artist: Jim Noir
Song: Eanie Meany
Album: Tower Of Love
Year: 2006

Download




Alright! Let's get down to it! As we've previously discussed, back when I worked at "Traders," we got a lot of promo CDs in it. I usually caught all of the good stuff, but occasionally, I'd leave it up to my co-worker, TambourineMan, to find the ones that slipped through the cracks. Thus, one day he played one of the best CDs of 2006 on the stereo. It was so beautiful, that even after the 5th listen, I still didn't really realize any music was playing. It was just so naturally perfect that I heard it as just being more of a sound of life than anything. I eventually caught on and realized it was this Tower Of Love album by Jim Noir. TambourineMan got dibs on our only copy of the album, so he eventually took it home. But he was gracious enough to keep it around the office for a good six months, so this, a disc from the Nick Lowe boxset, Belle and Sebastian's The Life Pursuit and the Jayhawk's Smile became the official theme music for our office.

Even still, it somehow skipped out of my memory when I compiled my best of list for that year. What was I thinking? I eventually owned it in 2007.

It took me a while to figure out which song I wanted to highlight today since they're all a lot of fun, but I settled on this "Eanie Meany," because its the most repetitive, funny and relateable. Jesus, just tell me how to spell "relatable," someone!!!

If you don't give my football back, I'm gonna get my dad on you
I only kicked it over your fence and broke a silly gnome or two

Eanie meany, run away
Eanie meany run away

You love it, right? I've never read the liner notes but I assume by the nature of the production style, that its this Jim Noir guy playing and singing everything. It just seems appropriate. This is what my music will sound like again one day. Just really nice.

Okay, I have to run. That said, let this song speak for itself. Or better yet, let this music video do the talking:

Joke #1

What sort of element could a dog discover??







How about ARRRFFFFON???

Mr. Movie

When I first decided to stop going to class in college, I would fill my newly free afternoons with a matinee or two. Over the course of the next year or two, this blossomed into me attempting to see every major motion picture that would reach Loews White Marsh 16 (the multiplex) or Beltway Movie 6 (the second run cheapo theatre). It didn't matter what they were. I did not discriminate. I saw them all. Practical Magic is about two witchy sisters??! I'll be there! Sphere is about a gigantic magical metallic ball? Count me in! Hard Rain. Dangerous Beauty. Hope Floats. The Borrowers. Wrongfully Accused. Check, check, check, check, check. And that was just Wednesday! Ba-dum-bump.

Anyhow, during that period, I began noting many issues that I had with the common movie-goer, and frankly, probably got a little too snobby over the whole thing. So snobby that I began writing a "Movie Theatre Etiquette" series on a short-lived money-making enterprise called Themestream. I tackled everything from arrival time to how most every concession is uncalled for. A lifelong friend, Junior, called me out on being too much of an ass over the situation, so I stopped typing it. But he couldn't stop me from feeling it.

That said, I don't go to the movies that frequently anymore, so my stance on many of previous pet peeves has been significantly softened. However, there's one that still rings as strong as ever. Seat Placement.

Mathematically and logically, when 40 people all go to see a film in a 300 seat theatre, there is absolutely no reason why you should have to sit directly behind, in front of or next to someone that you didn't go to the theatre with.

Granted, I understand that most people gravitate to the middle of the theatre, so if you were to graph the most popular seats in a movie house, you'd see a large build-up in the middle aisles of the middle rows. That and right next to wherever I decide to sit. Without fail, people love to sit close to me. I've already learned my lesson that I should try to never be the first into a movie theatre. Even if I sit in the far back corner, the other patrons will inevitably think that I know something that they don't know and come and join me.

Last night, I went to see There Will Be Blood and I purposely walked into the theatre after I knew that the bulk of the other people had already chosen their seats. I'm not that picky. I'll sit in the far right corner if I have to, but if I can get away with a slightly better seat, I want to take it. So, I chose a row that for all other intensive purposes (ed: I should say "intents and purposes..."...thanks darnedanalretentivestbloggirl) was probably a little too close to the screen, and I sat in the end seat. The end seat allows me to change location at a later point if things really got out of hand. That said, I'm generally anti-confrontational and I wouldn't want to to make even the most ignorant of moviegoers think that they've done something terribly wrong or have an odor problem of some sort, so I typically resign myself to my fate and stick it out for the long run. Perhaps I think that I'll sit myself into an even worse situation if I were to move.

That said, my seat pick seemed to be perfect. But I should have known better than to think that. Because as the first scene rolled through, a gentleman bundled up in what appeared to be 3 or 4 jackets stood next to my seat, pointing down the aisle, asking if any of those seats were taken. I reluctantly said no and stood up to let him through. Now would be a good time to point out that I was the only person in this aisle. He could have easily navigated to enter at the other end of the row. Alas, the movie had started, so I gave him a free pass for wanting to sit down as soon as possible. Plus, he didn't sit right next to me. He at least gave me a two seat buffer. Although he had 15 other further away seats to chose from, again, I'll give him another free pass.

And thus began the 20 minute ordeal of him (let's call him Loudman) peeling all of his layers off, opening however many bags of candy he had and generally adjusting himself. Good. That's done. Two or three minutes of pure silent bliss followed. Things are looking up.

Until it turned out that Loudman has a bit of a cold. I'm not going to fault anyone for being sick. Lord knows that I've had a chronic cough for the last two months that's probably been irritating everyone's who been unfortunate enough to have a conversation with. That said, I kept my cough in check for the entire twopointfive hour film. Good for me. This guy was another story.

Cough. Sneeze. Blown nose. Hocking throat noise. In the end, the ratio was probably one noise per minute. All dramatically louder than they really should have been. But illness is a force of nature. It wasn't this fella's fault. What was his fault was that after each disruptive sound, he made a point of saying "Ekscuseme" even louder than the noise itself. Cough. Ekscuseme. Sneeze. Ekscuse me. Blown nose. Ekscuseme. Hocking throat noise. Ekscuseme.

It should now be said that at the one hour mark in the film, some other guy came and sat immediately behind me. Did he really not mind missing almost the entire first half of the film? Had he already seen the first half the night before only to have to rush his pregnant wife to the hospital? Or was he escaping an annoying situation that was happening to him further back in the theatre? I gave him the benefit of the doubt and decided it was the latter. [Can you use the words "former" and "latter" when you had previously mentioned more than two thing?]

It was a matter of minutes later when Loudman decided that he might need to go the bathroom or the concession stand. I say "might," because he stood up and walked towards me. I stood up and my seat reached its full upright position, he said something that sounded like simply, "I forgot," turned around and sat back down. He forgot what?

Since I was already standing up, I should have taken this opportunity to relocate, but instead I sat back down in my original seat. Of course, ten minutes later, he remembered, and had to get by me to pop out for a Raisinette or something. I stood up and as each of his ten feet stepped on each of mine, he said, "Ekscuseme." He returned five minutes later, no worse or better for wear, and we did our little dance again.

At this point, I even tried to give IMissedTheFirstHourOfTheMovieBecauseMyWifeHadAChild a knowing glance of "Do you believe this guy?" thinking we might possibly be kindred spirits, but he just ignored me.

I don't know how to end this story.

Songtown - Vol. 9 (This Will Be Our Year)

Artist: The Zombies
Song: This Will Be Our Year
Album: Odessey and Oracle
Year: 1968
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I'm not going to lie and tell you that I don't think that "Auld Lang Syne" isn't a beautiful song. [A lot of negatives there. What exactly am I trying to say?] I don't entirely know what we're singing about. To me, it appears there's a lot of talk about forgetting and maybe dying or something. That said, its got a nice melody and any song where you and 30 of your closest friends and family huddle together in a chorus gets at least a couple points in my book.

That said, sometime in the near future, I'd like to at least give "This Will Be Our Year" a chance to usurp that one.

The warmth of your love's
Like the warmth from the sun
And this will be our year
Took a long time to come...

Don't let go of my hand
Now the darkness has gone
This will be our year
Took a long time to come...

And I won't forget
The way you helped me up when I was down
And I won't forget
The way you said "darling, I love you"
You gave me faith to go on
Now we're there
And we've only just begun
This will be our year
Took a long time to come...

The warmth of your smile
Smile for me, little one
And this will be our year
Took a long time to come...

You don't have to worry
All your worried days are gone
And this will be our year
Took a long time to come...

And I won't forget
The way you helped me up when I was down
And I won't forget
The way you said "darling, I love you"
You gave me faith to go on
Now we're there
And we've only just begun
This will be our year
Took a long time to come...

And this will be our year
Took a long time to come...

You might be saying, "Dude. New Year's was two weeks ago. Why are you just getting around to writing about this song now? Why wasn't this the first song that you wrote about?" Well, that's a valid point and I don't have a real answer for you. So, instead I'll offer this:

Why should we wait until New Year's Eve to sing this one? If it were up to me, we'd be singing this one at the end of every night. There's no better song that paints a picture of hope for the future. Sure, last year sucked, yesterday sucked, whatever time period sucked...but now, we're putting the pieces together and this year is finally gonna be the one. Optimism!

The song is nice and short. The lyrics are simple enough so that if you don't know it, you can watch the words forming on your loved one's lips and figure out where its going. And how about, "Darling, I love you. You gave me faith to go on!"? The vocal performance here is pretty relaxed and calm aside from that line. And lo and behold as that line comes approaching, you won't be able to help yourself from belting it out. All great sing-a-long songs have that moment. The one moment in the song that you that you look forward to from the opening notes. You can just imagine how you and yours will be all smiling at each other as you all raise your voices and ham that part up.

Instrumentally, the Zombies aced this one. The drums and piano play perfect counterpoints to each other, as the guitar and bass subtly fill in the rest of the spectrum. That said, I feel like this would be terribly difficult to replicate so perfectly, so...again...all great sing-a-long songs don't require anything more than a bunch of jokers standing in a circle singing their little hearts out. And this one is perfect for that.

Alright. Maybe I'll have to type up another one of these later on. Because this one...[stage directions: the blogger yanks at his collar with his index finger.]

Songtown - Vol. 8 (Encyclopedi-ite)

Artist: Sammy
Song: Encyclopedi-ite
Album: Tales Of Great Neck Glory
Year: 1996
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I just realized something about this Sammy band this morning. But, first, let's start at the beginning.

In 1996 and the two years leading up to it, I was super-excited that I had the good fortune of living in Overlea, just up the street from my favorite CD store, Record and Tape Trader. Setting aside the facts that this location was to eventually close and I would eventually work for/grow disenchanted with the company and I would eventually not care for the CD format anymore...in 1996, I was in love with finding new music and there was now better place to do it.

On what seemed like every summer afternoon, I would walk to "Traders" and initiate some sort of transaction that would involve me selling back a cardboard box's worth of CDs to them and then proceeding to spend all the money that they just gave me on new music. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. I could hear their collective sighs when I walked through the door. As a buyer, they didn't mind me. I didn't ask a lot of questions. I kept to myself. I spent a lot of money. As a seller, the employees dreaded seeing me, as I was a sign that they'd be spending their next thirty minutes on the phone with the Towson store to figure out how much they should give for each disc. That said, the company, as a whole, probably loved me, because I took great care of my CDs and they could get away with giving me $2 for a CD that I paid $12 for last month, which then they'll turn and sell for $8 next week. The sad part was that it would more than likely be me re-buying the CD, after reflecting and realizing that my financial situation wasn't as dire as it seemed and that I couldn't possibly live without Dr. Feelgood.

So, I resent the implication that my 27 year old self might need to sit down with a financial advisor, but my 16 year old self? Not so much.

I haven't outgrown this process of buying and quickly selling my CDs, but at least now I have iTunes and the mp3 format, so I preserve digital copies of every album that I've owned over the last four years, at least. The archiver part of me kicks me for not having discovered mp3s in 1992, however.

One such CD is Sammy's Tales of Great Neck Glory. Bought it. Loved it. Sold it. Re-bought it for a penny off of Amazon. So not a terrible arc.

Each time I was at Traders, I would thumb through each and every rack to make sure that I hadn't missed something yesterday. One fateful day, as I flipped through the S placard, I found this CD with a couple mop-topped dudes on it, with a little sticker that [I thought] said "Featuring former members of GBV." I had recently started listening to Guided By Voices, as they were apparently the godfathers of indie rock. I didn't necessarily care for GBV that much, but it had taken stickers with a lot less intrigue to convince me to buy other albums. So, of course, I was going to buy this one.

I took it up and was surprised that it was a thoroughly enjoyable listen. I loved the first five or six songs, and then from there, it all becomes murky. The album as a whole is a little or a lot monotonous. There aren't really any bad songs, but if you've heard one, you know what the second, third and fourth ones are going to sound like.

And I feel bad for saying this, because every single mention of Sammy on the internet mentions it, but it would be a disservice if I didn't note that they're a poor man's Pavement. The music is a lot smoother and the lyrics, for the most part, don't ever come close to matching that abstract brilliance of Malkmus, but nonetheless...Pavement For Babies. That said, most of these reviews use this relation as Strike One, Strike Two and Strike Three against the band. I think that's going a little overboard. Granted, the reviews were written at a time when a lot of bands were trying to steal the Pavement sound, so the reviewers were probably just really fed up with it all. So, maybe they've returned to Tales of Great Neck Glory and can now listen to it as just an album of however many pretty good songs.

"Encyclopedi-ite" is one of the three or four standout tracks. The lyrics revolve around the narrator's obsession with some know-it-all smarty-pants. If the music and melody wasn't so peppy and fun, a typical listener would probably report this song to the authorities upon hearing it. You see, it sounds like Dude is friends with this Encyclopedi-ite, but everytime they hang out, "[she] always gave him the tour/he never gets to explore." So this leads the dude to break into the girl's room so that he can "absorb like a sponge/everything that [she's] done." Or maybe I'm reading too far into it? Maybe its less creepy? Maybe its just his brother or something and he's sick of living in his shadow? You decide!

Let me live your life, Encyclopedi-ite
Don't turn out the light

Yeah, he's a creep. No doubt.

And now to what I've just found out this morning. None of these guys have ever been in Guided By Voices. That stickers said ""Featuring former members of GVSB" instead. Girls vs. Boys. I hated that band and even my pitiful 16 year old suffer wouldn't have been suckered into buying this album if he had read that correctly.