A war is being waged around me, as I try to fall asleep on this couch. The war's been going on for as long as I remember, and though sleep will soon overcome me and my eyes will close, the unblinking war will continue.
One weary soldier is waddling towards me. Sukie is her name. Sukie has seen it all. Sukie occasionally forgets what home is like, and she wonders if her home will welcome her when, or if, she returns. Sukie sometimes doesn't even remember what she is fighting for.
Sukie is sure that she's fighting, though. She knows that for sure. She glances around and sees that the coast is clear. Belle and Sebastian are no where to be seen. She looks around the room and finds a target. Sukie approaches and sniffs. The target smells vaguely of Belle. This is Belle's turf, and it has been for some time. This is about to change.
----
I walk into the backroom to find Sukie peeing on my Playstation 2 okay what the fuck Sukie.
It's like breaking up with that gorgeous girl that everyone envies you for having. Yeah, I know she seems like all you could ask for, but I don't know man, it's just not working for me. I hit this point every year with summer.
Summer is the sexiest thing on the planet. Go outside at night; it's pleasant, not freezing cold. Go to work in the day, make money. Don't want to socialize? Great, do nothing for as long as you want. Assuming you aren't in summer classes (oxymoronic and regular moronic) and don't work a 9-5 job, summer is unquestionably tantalizing.
Yet here I am, anxiously awaiting the return of college and, along with it, diligence. There will be homework, there will be obligations, tan skin will be replaced with chapped lips, days of the week will again become relevant, boredom will become stress, discomforting heat will turn to shivering and sickness.
That sounds not at all appealing. Neither does being away from my beloved Springfield friends. Neither does sharing bathrooms, dorm food, sleepy lectures, waking up late for class, missing the bus, trying out and not making improv troupes, or going to parties I don't actually want to be at.
Summer is like stopping time. You can do whatever you want. Grab that American-made freedom by the balls and swing it around — make it your bitch. But, nothing's happening. So? Why am I not okay with this?
Schoolyear, as I'll call you, you are one ugly whore. You show me no loyalty, treat me like crap, look like an abused dog, and practice poor hygiene. I can't believe I'm saying this, but, come back to me baby. I miss you. Don't judge my tastes, guys. She's crazy in bed, I swear. She knows me. We're just good together, okay?
Right now my job is extremely boring. Because of our new jean promotion my duties consist of (and are completely limited to) standing in the front room of our store, wearing the new, "redesigned" jeans, and handing customers promotional contest cards. Monotonous and unstimulating. The only thing that makes my five hour shifts bearable is the presence of other employees in my same position. I end up having really long, in-depth conversations with people I have little to no other connection to.
Most recently I have been working with mostly people who have just graduated high school and are preparing to leave for college. They are all nervous and extremely excited for this new chapter in their life. In these conversations I all of the sudden find myself as the voice of wisdom and experience. I explain to them that college is awesome but it is never what you expect. You will not have the same experience as any one else and it migh suck at the beginning but you simply have to stick it out. It all sounds so mature and easy when I'm talking to them but as soon as the conversation is over all I can think is how I feel like I'm lying.
I honestly can't wrap my head around the fact that I have already gone through a full year of college. I'm like super in college. No preface necessary, I am a college student. I haven't been in a high school class for over a year and living at home has become a temporary situation. I am nineteen years old. I've been able to rent porn for over a year. What?
These are all true facts and yet it still feels to me like I graduated a month ago and I am leaving for college for the first time all over again. I still don't know what to expect and I definitely don't have my shit together. I'm still worried about how hard my college classes are going to be and whether or not I picked the right major. I still have no decent answer when people ask what I want to do with my math degree. I have no plan and I don't see that changing any time soon. I am a child. Why the hell do i think I can give advice to people?
But then I guess the point of college is to delay adulthood. Four years in a Neverland of your choice so that you can put off real life for awhile. Four years to hope that the job market will improve and four years to try to experience everything all at once. I am not growing up, I am doing the complete opposite. I am old enough now that I finally get to live out the play pretends of my childhood. I am still the same child with the same silly desires, just a new playing field. Let's all stay in college forever, yeah?
"But nowadays everybody's a comedian, even the weather girls and continuity announcers. We laugh at everything. Not intelligently anymore, not with sudden shock, astonishment, or revelation, just relentlessly and meaninglessly. No more rain showers in the desert, just mud and drizzle everywhere, occasionally illuminated by the flash of paparazzi." - Douglas Adams
I really like comedy. I like comedy a lot. Most of my friends like comedy. I'm in two improv troupes. I've done sketches and comedy videos many times. But comedy and I need to talk.
One of my favorite comedies of all time is Arrested Development. Arrested Development has a clever story line, clever characters, and extremely well-written dialogue. In many ways, it's the perfect comedy TV show. The plot advances at a good pace, the characters are humorous but believable, and it can put on a serious face without ever ceasing to be clever and entertaining.
Friday Conor shares my passion for Arrested Development, and has also introduced me to a number of other comedies. For example, one of his favorite movies is Hot Rod. Hot Rod is a movie designed expressly to get laughs; a series of well-coordinated jokes, one after another. However, I have trouble getting into Hot Rod.
I need context for jokes to have effect on me. I find shows like Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog and Arrested Development far funnier than Hot Rod or (dare I mention) Black Dynamite, because they can tackle serious issues while still being every bit as clever and funny. I find that movies which aim only to be funny start to feel hollow.
I think this is also why I prefer long-form improv to short-form. Not only is the scene funny, but it can tell a longer, more elaborate story.
I consider comedy to be a vessel: not a pursuit in and of itself, but a tool used to tell a story.
Hey guys, this week all I'm going to do is tell you something I'd really like to do, just as soon as I finish off that conscience of mine.
Step 1: Acquire blunt object.
This is the easiest step.
Step 2: Hide in bush with blunt object and wait for someone on the block to pull their car up to a house, get out, and enter a different house than the one they parked at.
This is the step second most likely to get you arrested.
Step 3: Violently attack that car's side mirror.
Step 4: Leave a note on the windshield that reads: "Don't park in front of my house, dick."
Step 5: Hide in bush and wait for an absurd confrontation to ensue.
If you have the time, please listen to these songs and tell me if you like them! I like them.
"We're the heirs to the glimmering world."
This song is sung in the present tense, and while the lyrics read naive and romantic on paper, this song is unmistakably sad. There's a weight to the drums, to the layered guitars, to his deep voice. It feels like it's been a while since the singer believed the things that he's singing. The National are a band about the little details, and the clarinets, the ways the guitar lightly play together, the soft backing vocals, they all add up to make something beautiful.
BASSBASSBASSBASSBASSBASS
Okay, dancing. Someone's going to need to explain this to me, I don't think I understand quite how it's done, yet.I avoid letting myself dance, even though I really enjoy trying and failing, but when certain songs come on I can't help myself. This song is one of them. How is Justice this cool? How is the bass in this song so awesome? How are the strings so sharp and awesome? How is that guy next to me so fresh and stylin' with his dance moves? Some things I will never understand.
Yes, yes yes yes yes I know. The King Of Limbs is probably Radiohead's second worst album after Pablo Honey, their mediocre debut. I agree that most of the songs sound reeeally similar and stuff, yeah sure okay. But now that I'm done expecting greatness and perfection out of this album, I'm liking it a lot more. I think the songs really work better when enjoyed out of context, too. There's an attention to detail and subtlety they show in these songs that's really really cool. This song is especially dense. Towards the end all of the percussion tracks on top of one another make the track sound really claustrophobic and crazy. Also I think the melody he's singing during the "good morning mr.magpie, how are you today?" part sounds like the Beatles. Anybody? Anybody else? Even a little bit?
"We's about to make it clear we and we lonesome."
How cool would it be if I could raaaaap.
There's some x-factor when it comes to rap and hip-hop that I can't place that is totally a deal breaker for me. If a song has it I'm really really into it, and if doesn't I'm pretty uninterested. This song? This song has it. This song has it for days. Gorillaz does such a cool job of bridging pop, hip-hop and alternative music. I really want to learn how to use electronics. It would be so cool to work on something like this.
It would also be so cool to rap. Fuuuuuck.
"It's just a dream he keeps having, and it doesn't seem to mean anything."
What a pretty, bittersweet, catchy, heartbreaking little song. It feels modest, if that makes any sense. The guitar noodles around the whole time while Jeff Tweedy spits out sad little lines with that tired, enduring voice of his. Man I love everything about this song do you guys? Man.
This is one of my favorite love songs of all time. Also, Lemony Snicket, the guy who wrote the Series of Unfortunate Events books, plays accordion on this song, no joke.
I hope I ever write any song that rocks as casually and confidently as this song does at 1:03. They Might Be Giants just plain kick ass for 10 seconds there and then quickly move on to another idea because that's just what they do. They're crazy and endlessly creative. They're 40 something year old nerds who are cooler than pretty much everyone. I read something once that said this song is about a car crash and the song is being sung by the car itself. Woooooah.
Of all relevant mediums by which people listen to music, my personal favorite is the vinyl record. In addition to a portable turntable that I have adopted as my own, my mom has a sizable collection of albums and 45s from her adolescence and young adulthood. Over the past few years I've purchased records of my own, which I keep in a large milk crate with selected albums of my mother's. I prefer listening to records on vinyl for numerous reasons.
For one thing, it's a very physical process. I like being obligated to set down the needle in the appropriate spot and flipping the record after each side is through. I like admiring album art when it's right in front of me, a physical and visual manifestation of the music I am listening to.
CDs, sure, are hand-held and have much more use- you can play them in your car or stereo, you can burn them on your computer and thus transfer the songs to your iTunes or your iPod. But there are just too many CDs to buy if I want to keep up on current and past music and transfer all that to my iPod. I can much more simply and cheaply borrow any desired album from the library and return it when I've burned it onto my computer.
I don't even really want to venture into the discussion of today's music industry and the rise of the mp3. I just think it's dangerous and too available and annoying and boring and blah blah blah.
Cassette tapes are fun, albeit obsolete nowadays. None of my tape players work anymore, and I'm not going to carry around a newly-purchased walkman when I have an iPod. Former Thursday Classic Brian blogger, Cory, releases all music on his independent record label on cassette tape only. An admirable business venture, but a fiscally unsound decision all the same. I'm glad he is now further able to assert his hipster status, but even hipsters have to realize that cassette tapes are inferior to virtually all available music-listening mediums.
The records I buy on vinyl are typically- though not solely- older albums, ones that I have a personal stock in. These are albums that I want to set up and play in my bedroom or dorm room to fill up the room with that inimitable, rough, nearly palpable sound. It's sort of like an invisible concert is being played while I put away laundry or read a book.
Furthermore, if I were to choose one type of music-listening medium to hold onto for years to come- something to come across and reminisce about fondly- then I choose vinyl records. They're just cool.
Some records that sound great on vinyl:
Highway 61 Revisited - Bob Dylan
The Band - The Band
Various Beatles' LPs - Sgt. Pepper's, Abbey Road, Rubber Soul (US version, duh!), etc.
Oracular Spectacular - MGMT
Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes (saw them in St. Louis the other night, fantastic!)
Today I just got Paul McCartney & Wings' Band On The Run, and from previous listening, it's fascinating when played on vinyl. Namely "Mrs. Vanderbilt," followed by "Let Me Roll It." Here's hoping old Macca plays those songs when I see him live at Wrigley Field on August 1.
