how to scare away people

john frusciante - running away into you (right-click to download)

The story of John Frusciante goes something like this: Fan of band becomes member of band, band breaks bigtime, fan of band (and now band member) thinks band has sold out, fan of band quits band, becomes heroin junkie, releases some albums, nearly dies, rejoins band, band releases more albums and enjoys more success.

The band that John Frusciante was and is currently a member of is the Red Hot Chili Peppers, a band that was my favorite over about a year span during my college years. I'm not sure what my thinking was back then, because I don't really listen to the band at all now. I do know that the story of John Frusciante was one I found highly interesting, enough so that I joined an email group dedicated to him. And this lead to some interesting email discussions.

I also struck up a sort of pseudo-friendship with a fellow out in San Francisco because of the email group; when I first put my name in the ring he responded by telling me I wasn't invited, so I continued to send him harrassing emails until we struck up a more rational conversation. I can't recall his name now, oddly enough, but in the early days of the internet and email, he was someone I greatly looked forward to hearing from. Because my knowledge of music and film at the time was quite limited, his suggestions were always taken with the highest regard. He told me about Tricky and Breaking The Waves (if you click this link and are unfamiliar with the movie, be sure to read the plot summary), and really sort of opened my eyes to a lot of things.

As I recall, he eventually said he was taking a new job and/or new drugs, and then all of a sudden his emails just stopped coming. I may have even pleaded for further contact, but nothing ever came.

I find the whole thing really funny now, and I can't see how I ever thought any of our "friendship" made any sense; he probably just thought I was some naive kid, and I'm sure the way I paid attention to everything he wrote was quite the ego boost. He probably wasn't more than 3 or 4 years older than me. I guess our email conversations kind of started a pattern for me... You had to be there.

Anyway, back to the John Frusciante song. I've always enjoyed this song for the absurdity of the whole thing; a voice that turns into a UFO, words that fall like water, a millionaire junkie living in a filthy hotel singing into a tape recorder... When I spent a semester at college living in the dorm, I used to play this song whenever we had visitors that didn't know me very well. I guess maybe I thought it sort of defined where I was at, or maybe I was using it as a beacon. In any case, all it ever managed to do was annoy people enough to where they'd ask me to turn it off.

I guess I'm (or was) a weird kid.

PS. If you are downloading these songs, I'd appreciate your thoughts in comment form, even if it's just to say "that was horrible" or "quit wasting my time".

two song rotation starts tomorrow, probably

a new song will be going up sometime tomorrow, so if you wanted in, you'd better get it while you can.

(this message is just in case someone is actually reading this)

we're not breaking new ground here

REM - Electrolite (right-click to download)

I've always found that it takes me a couple of years to "get" an REM album after it's released. I'll form an opinion that I don't like the albums when they debut, and then a while later I'll revisit them and find that they're alot better than I remembered.

In any case, New Adventures In Hi Fi isn't usually the first REM album most people think of; while I can remember an MTV performance of "The Wake Up Bomb", nothing else about the album really sticks out. But New Adventures is by far my favorite REM album, perhaps because it's an album well suited for driving, which is something I do a fair amount of.

I suppose the song I've put up, Electrolite, reminds me of a different kind of travel, the sort of travel that I hope comes at the moment we die. I'm don't want to get overly sentimental or maybe even creepy about it, but certain phrases in the song kind of sum up how I hope to feel when it's all over. I imagine this is the song I'll hear right after I take my last breath and head off to whatever is next. At least I hope so.

break a bottle of champaign already

blur - good song (right-click to download)

If I'm going to start a proper music blog, I might as well start with a song titled "good song", which will hopefully set the whole thing off right.

This song comes from Blur's 7th album, Think Tank, which was either loved or hated by critics. In any case, most music writers seem to think the album sounds like a band falling apart. Oddly enough, I think Think Tank sounds like a Blur that has finally found nirvana (not the band).

This song reminds me of a tiny car driving down a narrow Japanese highway during a boiling summer, but not for reasons that would make sense to anyone but me.

Mike, did you hit this up?

http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,67303,00.html?tw=rss.TOP

Indy, Star Wars, and IT just seem to go together

there's blood on my neck from success

things on my desk: 5 cds, 12 diskettes, scrap paper, two white gloves, a notepad.

a highlighter, a rubberband, a checkbook that says "dale earnhardt" from when he was still alive, eye drops, a coupon for fazolis that i'll never use.

a set of car keys, a scanner, a monitor, (1) keyboard, a phone, a clipboard.

a sharpie marker. a mouse. my arms as i type this.

a hockey puck and a webcam.

* * * * *

Knicks, Jesus Fucking Christ

Tonight, on a broker's dime, I saw Reggie Miller's last game at Madison Square Garden from box seats. Nothing could have been more anticlimactic. Reggie scored some 13 points or so, but the fact that the Knicks are the worst team in the worst division in basketball kept an undercurrent of nausea running through what I had hoped to be a memorable experience. I quickly got drunk, but it couldn't mask the sadness of what has become of this team. The Pacers, without Jermaine O'Neal (or Ron Artest, of course) EASILY handled Isaiah Thomas's ragtag crew. By the end, I was praying to see Joanna Newsom off the bench.

Ugh. This doesn't help me stomach the Illinois loss. If another person says "live by the three, die by the three," I will cut off my own head, set it on fire, and throw it through their living room picture window.

Joanna Newsom, wtf?

I have to admit that I've been avoiding the music of Joanna Newsom based entirely off things that really have nothing to do with the actual music. For example, let's take a look at Miss Newsom (and a Joanna Newsom associate, Devendra Banhart).





Ok... before I'd ever heard of Joanna Newsom, I read an article about Devendra Banhart on pitchfork and discovered that he looks like an evil wizard on crack. I try to stay away from music created by crack wizards, and also music by crack wizards' associates, and so...

The thing is, I don't really know how I found out they were associates anyway. There's a good chance they aren't, for all I know.

Besides the Banhart association, I'd read that Miss Newsom has a high pitched voice and plays a harp. Not really my thing, but I'll usually give anything a shot.




The thing is, I listen to music created by the two fellows above (Max Cavalera of Sepultura/Soulfly and David Lee Roth (if you don't know who David Lee Roth is you just don't deserve to live)) more often than I'd like to admit, and neither of them are exactly pretty.

So who am I to judge, really? I'm ugly myself.

With that in mind, I downloaded a Newsom track today, and while I haven't listened to the whole thing yet, my very first thought was "Why didn't anyone tell me she sounded like Shirley Temple?"

Oh man... awesome.

Tom DeLay, wtf?

Mr. DeLay is threatening judges now? Oh, the inconveniences of checks and balances. When you control 2 branches of gov't, you can't help but eye that third one and think, "If it weren't for that pesky judiciary..."

Bright Eyes and Doves, first and latest

The last live show I've hit up was the Doves about a week ago and their music translated live surprisingly well. Their new album isn't bad, but how does anyone not own "Lost Souls", one of the better albums of 2000?

Speaking of 2000, after "Fevers and Mirrors" I thought Conor Oberst would go in a different direction, but he soldiered on with "Lifted". Now, to the lovefest of music critics, he's put out the excellent country/folk rock album "I'm Wide Awake...". Good for him. His was the first live show I saw in NYC, so I have a weird association of him with my time here. It's completely involuntary, but it is the same with Ryan Adams, whom I saw free in Battery Park on July 4th 2 years ago.

It's a fire.

I guess it wasn't too much of a tease... here's fire...
Couch fire


I apologize for the geocities... it's free. And they give me only 5mb and they have a limit on transfer requests (if my site gets too much traffic they shut it down) and how can you pass that up.

Dear Oasis Cinnamon Pita Chips,

No one loves you as much as I. Why do you have to be high in calories? You're so gosh-darned low in fat! You're almost perfect! Except for those calories.

Oh darn it, Oasis Cinnamon Pita Chips. I love you anyway. I see past your flaws and eat you in handfulls. Because you and I were meant for each other.

Amen,

Jesus

quoting someone with them knowing..

guy on a messageboard (i lurk alot on messageboards):


sometimes i like to try and freak myself out by envisioning how i'll explain what life's been like over the past couple of years to someone in my future. i'll be all like "wellllll, everyone had their fucking head up their fucking ass, and the government raped everyone and shit in everyone's mouth, but no one seemed to really notice, or even care, all anyone seemed to want to talk about was american idol and janet jackson's titty and paris hilton's pussy and that's about it, oh, and the president tried to save a fucking braindead vegetable for jesus, and a whole bunch of brown people got blown up, but really, that's about it".

Little Pictures of Love

When looking though other non-profiteer blogs, you find some good pictures...

Lars

No comment

Way to accentuate the positive.

Raggety Ann


This was just a shameless post to tease you with this...
I will soon be bringing fire to the Internet.

his name is "Bryan", mark.

i know. we were tight.

DEAR INDIANA RESIDENTS,

1) I'm not calling you "hoosiers" because that's a fucking awful name to claim as your own.

2) Approximately 97% of you have something Indiana University related on your car. The IU license plate. The IU rear window logo sticker. And you're probably wearing an IU hat with IU shirt. Or IU underwear.

Look, if 97% of the residents of a state go to the same school, does that make it special enough to plaster your car with its logo? Or buy everything that says IU? Apparently a retarded dog could get into IU.

3) If you happen to be a cashier at a gas station, do not address me as "honey". Or "sweetie". I don't know you. I'm going to respond by calling you "lover" or "fuck buddy" or something along those lines, because YOU started the slippery slope, Beloved Cunt.

Alright. I'm really not that angry about it. It's just stuff that wears on me.

I'm always writing about the library

Indianapolis is a fairly large city, so you'd think that my girlfriend leaving for the weekend wouldn't be cause for the complete destruction for any sort of social or activity-based plan I could come up with. But because (4 and 1/2 years in now) I still haven't developed any new and/or meaningful relationships with anyone (apart from my boss, I guess), a weekend alone is a recipe for complete livestyle anarchy.

Friday evening I celebrated my freedom by spending 65 minutes on the elliptical trainer at my gym. 65 minutes is a long time to spend pretend-cross-country-skiing, even at the masochistic (and probably unhealthy) rate I tend to extend myself physically.

That's all well and good, and I felt like I had really accomplished something by burning off half my daily calorie intake. But now I had at least 4 more hours to kill, and I've recently become really bored by video games. So now what?

The perfect answer was "go watch a kung fu movie at the dollar theater".

So I drove over to the theater and found out that I'd have an hour to kill before the movie started. I pondered sitting in my car listening to talk radio for an hour, but that seemed even more pathetic than saying "One for House of Flying Daggers".

A good way to kill an hour, regardless of if my girlfriend is in town or not, is a trip to Borders to buy a travel or health related magazine.

I've pretty much subscribed to every magazine available at this point (the list: GQ, Esquire, Car and Driver, National Geographic, National Geographic Adventure, Conde Nast Traveler, Dwell, KING (yes, KING), and Blender. I'm sure I'm forgetting something.) except for Men's Health, which I have a newfound need for, now that I'm all manly and healthy. And the latest issue had Albert Pujhols on the cover (an aside: In the local sporting goods store, they have a finely chiseled mannequin chest wearing Nike's new workout apparel. Next to this mannequin is a picture of Albert Pujhols wearing the same shirt. I wonder if I am alone in wondering if the mannequin is an accurate representation of Albert Pujhols' chest? And is wondering about mannequin chests homoerotic?) so I just had to have it.

Having picked up my issue of Men's Health (conversation at the counter: "Are you on our email list?" "No. And I don't want to be." "Well I only ask because we don't sell your email address and we send out coupons. I usually don't ask the regulars, if I recognize them." "Ok.") I headed back to the theater to watch House of Flying Daggers and low and behold (vs. Low and Behad) there's a bunch of high school kids with the 3 foreign exchange students (2 Japanese, 1 Chinese) talking about the words they know in the language and the girl that knows Latin and Japanese and something else can't shut the hell up.

Oh goddamn it.

Anyway, the movie starts and everyone shut up. And the movie is ok. It's very vivid. And the plot is stupid, and the fight scenes are ok, and it's about 80% through the movie that the stupid girls (about my age, I guess) decide that they can't handle the stupid plot and it's time to guffaw at everything.

Nothing can make a partially bad movie worse than a group of stupid bitches making noise over the top of it. My girlfriend has a problem with controlling her opinion of folks that talk or make noise through a film; I prefer to sit and stew (and not start a fight).

Anyway, the movie ended. Blaaaaahhhhhhhh.

* * * * * (TM Debbie)

Fucking hell this is a long entry. I promise I didn't mean for that to happen.

* * * * *

Saturday, after awaking late and visiting the gym again, I made a trip down to the downtown library to pick up books about Japan and Southwestern America (my next two vacation destinations). I found the books easy enough after a small bout with retardation.

Having found my books, I advanced the self checkout and began to scan my card. That went well enough.

But the books didn't want to scan. None of them. Four books, no scanning.

I suppose the average person would only be slightly (if at all) embarrassed by my predicament, but I'm the sort of person who, when in the self checkout line at the grocery store, likes to figure out cruel and unusual ways to murder the old people who don't know what they're doing in front of me.

So I gave up, and joined the regular que.

Just then the other librarian, and young fella about my age, came back and asked for the next person in line.

"Couldn't get the self-checkout to work?"

(Knowing he thinks I'm a fucking idiot) "It didn't seem to want to cooperate."

"Sometimes people have trouble."

* * * * *

That evening I watched 3 episodes of six feet under, and finished watching Kurosawa's Ran (BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH).

Sunday I went to the gym and cooked (I cook a lot. I'm a fantastic cook.)

Then I went to target and some huge supermarket (spending 1 hour buying 6 items. A true story.)

* * * * *

Oh, by the way. YOU FUCKERS.

i'm going to start a loud band

we'll practice for a while and finally get a gig and i'm just going to make noise on guitar or play bass, and then at our first gig, we're playing our song and i just start screaming

WEARY WEARY WEARY WEARY WEARY WEARY WEARY WEARY WEARY

over and over like 100 times into the microphone, not because i'm particularly fond of the word, but just because it got stuck in my head

and the band, while confused, soon decide that all our songs should just be us yelling words that got stuck in our heads, and we release an album on capitol called

PANCAKES PANCAKES PANCAKES PANCAKES PANCAKES (REPEAT 100 TIMES)

pancakes so many times we have to put the album out in one of those old long-ass cardboard cd boxes they used to come in when cds were new and exciting.

and maybe inside the cardboard box is a piece of balled up paper that sort or rolls out when you open the box and it continues to read PANCAKES PANCAKES PANCAKES until it unroll on the ground, obscuring the feet of the consumer

at which point PANCAKES turns into CONSUMER CONSUMER... just twice because it doesn't flow when you type it.

* * * * *

sometimes i write things that i think are great. alot of the time. they're really interesting or stupid or just make me think "where did that come from" or...

maybe great is a strong word.

anyway, i hope you enjoy reading them as much as i enjoy writing them.

Thinkin' about a blog. (Singing to myself). If only this song were true.

(1945) richard rodgers, oscar hammerstein ii

When you walk through a storm
Hold your head up high
And don't be afraid of the dark
At the end of the storm
Is a golden sky
And the sweet silver song of a lark

Walk on through the wind
Walk on through the rain
Though your dreams be tossed and blown
Walk on, walk on
With hope in your heart
And you'll never walk alone
You'll never walk alone

pretty girls a dime a dozen

had another conversation last night about how everywhere you look now there's a pretty girl.

more pretty girls than ever before. even ugly parents have pretty girls now.

but not so much guys. i think guys look about the same as they ever did.

pretty soon average guys everywhere will have overly pretty girls and the whole world will collapse under the weight of the millions of pretty girls everywhere ruining everything.

AH...

another note...

i read/browsed an article in the local independent weekly (every city has one! all owned by the same company! maybe they're not independent!) about indianapolis' blogger community. they ever featured some samples of writing.

and while i'm sure those people are lovely people, i think i'm a better writer.

but then again, as i was telling gina, i think i'm better than everyone at everything.

feel free to leave comments assuring me that i'm right.

Everybody keeps on talkin' about it, nobody's gettin it done

hello from under the pile of work that collects on my desk.

although i have plenty to do, you see i have no qualms whatsoever taking some time out to say hello. that's what we in the professional blogging field call "committtmentt".

i'm sure you're wondering what wonderful and exciting things i did this weekend, so here's a quick recap.

1) friday after work i spent at least one hour thinking about toledo ohio.

that's not true. gina and i went to john g's for dinner, a dinner he felt he owed us. whatever. in any case, he ran some new jokes by me, and i think maybe it was the first time i really thought "that's good stuff no matter who's mouth it's coming from".

but it could have been that his joke just had me pegged.

then starbucks and a store with trinkets.

2) saturday... i think i went to the gym. oh. i watched an f1 race that had a result i greatly liked. viva fernando alonso.

3) sunday. gym. clean house. spent at least 1.5 hours ironing. i'm an ironing maniac.

so there you have it. my weekend. boring boring.

oh, i should also point out i bought two under armour shirts this weekend. not the tight ones.

WE MUST PROTECT THIS HOUSE!

ATTACK!

i'm sure i mentioned this before, but at work we're just starting a weight loss contest, judged only on how many pounds a person loses.

i got in on the fun because i don't think the people here have the drive to stick to a diet and exercise regimen for 6 months. I don't think I have the drive to do it, either, but I think it's alot more likely that I'll continue to lose weight. I'm at the gym everyday anyway..

so I figured it couldn't hurt. The winner gets two days off (!) which at $10/hr is $160, right? (yes i make more than $10/hr)

two extra days in japan would be ok too. or two extra days after japan to recoup. either way, i figured it couldnt' hurt.

of course then i went and told everyone else that i figured i'd win because they couldn't stick with it, so now i've got a bunch of women mad with me.

so what. if they lose the weight, then good for them. if they don't, then i'll take my two days.

BOOM SHA-LOCK LOCK BOOM

from this i expect a reaction

OLD STUFF
OLD STUFF
OLD STUFF
OLD STUFF
OLD STUFF
OLD STUFF

More on the way...

Doing an install at Highland Police Department this week so I'm not in the office too much to reply or post. Thursday or Friday I should have a full post with details on the rodeo and other events.