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:: 2.02.2001 :: (listening to: PJ Harvey: Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea) Perfect Friday, except that I'm still at work. Everything else is nice, it's sunny outside, and I'm leaving for the mountains almost immediately after work. I really can't ask for much else. Hopefully I'll be back in time Sunday to get a new MP3 of the week up. I already know what's it's going to be, I'm so prepared, just like an overzealous Boy Scout. Sometimes I sound like a talking Care Bear. (2:03 PM) :: (link)
(listening to: Pink Floyd: Dark Side of the Moon)
Yah, I'm listening to Pink Floyd. Yah, I know it's not all that cool. No, I don't really care. I got my copy of this record at a thrift store last year up by a lake I never knew existed. It's pretty scratched up and sounds like shite, but I'm listening to it anyways. Oh well.
Tonight actually turned out really well. Went and played with my new band (I'll stop linking their site with their name, or else I'd have to do it 10 times a week), well, actually with just the guitar player. We sat in the cold kitchen of their flat and drank some beer, there's a shelf above the kitchen table with a boom box on it as well as a portrait of some rabbits. He played me some rough mixes of their stuff, I sat down at the battery-powered Yamaha keyboard (including worn-off sticker that once lableled the name of the note on the key) and he played along with an acoustic guitar and taught me the songs note for note. I actually caught on pretty quick, and grew to like the songs after a few tries. I jotted them down on the backside of my car insurance papers in my total wack musical nomenclature, just names of notes with arrows pointing up or down. It's pretty janky, but I've grown to understand them. An hour and a half later I could limp my way through three songs, not bad for an evenings work.
We left the flat and I limped (bad knee) up the street to Bar, a local dive with a single bartender and a single pool-table. What a weird crowd, yuppie guys in the back playing pool against withered Mexicans who drank their Corona out of cheap glasses, some bro with a backwards Yankees cap sticking his tongue in the ear of some girl who had a spiked belt on, but a total office-lady permed hairdo. Out front there were some putzy guys who looked like they really wanted to be in Limp Bizkit or some such nonsense, big sideburns, baggy shorts, and longish beards. The crowd I was immersed in was a mix of folks on the low-end of the dotcom spectrum, and lesbian filmakers. One girl sat next to me, introduced herself, and demanded to know the meaning, or significance if you will, of my tattoos. "Where do you come from? Where do you come from?" she kept asking me, as I tried to not look confused. "YOU CAN'T FUCKING CALL DIRTY ON THE EIGHT-BALL! TU COMPRENDE?" The yuppies were yelling at the Mexicans, who seemed to be pissed that they sank the 8-ball but didn't win. They were really fucking furious, I tried to not catch their eye.
Sometimes I miss the city, really.
Recipe for making the day brighter even though your knee hurts so bad you can barely walk: put on great pop music, hobble around the room in an attempt to dance like John Travolta, and clean like the wind. Exactly what I did, and I'm feeling much better about life. Hell, I even changed not one but *two* ligthbulbs. I know you want me as a roomate now.
Kind of crabby again today. Don't really know what's into me, but, can you say dot-com recession? Now all I need is for the rents to go down.
Practicing some songs tonight with the new band. Well, with one of the guys in the new band who has been designated as my teacher. Should be slightly fun, but might be tedious. I don't feel like sitting in traffic, but then again, I don't feel like doing much.
Why do emo kids always seem to love that song "Sailing" by Christopher Cross? This perplexes me. Well, I love that song too, but...
I'm having a damn good night and I don't know why.
(listening to: Smog: Kicking a Couple Around)
You know, just typing the name of this record made me wonder how it's meant...I mean, it could be taken as "kicking a couple of songs around, you know, some I've had just sitting about," or it really could, literally mean kicking a "couple" around, as in a man and wife, man and boyfriend, woman and lover, you get the picture. I mean, hell, his last album was called Dongs of Sevotion and he has a holiday single called 'Neath the Puke Tree (which I can't find on Napster). Onward.
Fuck, where to start. Today was weird, I don't know what it was. I drank three pints last night, one over my limit. Nothing bad happened, I felt fine upon waking, but something just didn't click today. It was cold, yes, but extremely sunny as well. I wasn't prepared for that, so I think I was in a wintry-wonderlandy kind of mood and instead I got a bit of summer trickery. Fucking weather, totally screwing with my moods.
Got back from the driving and had to work for an hour in the office, much to my chagrin. I shuffled about listening to Sgt. Pepper's and watching the clock. For some reason, it worked and the time went by really quickly. Walked around the bookstore after work while Miss Rodeo America searched for a David Sedaris book downstairs. I always look at the photography books, today I picked up one that seemed to be half about neo-nazi kids in the 90s, and half about prostitutes. As in, pictures of skinheads looking tough with guns, and pictures of half naked nasty whores. Strange concept, but not bad photography actually. There was a good pictures of some skinhead youth girl draped in an American flag, looking unnaturally goth, standing on the beach next to a 30-something surfer guy in a wetsuit who looked as if he were about to jog in Baywatch-esque slow-motion to his jet black convertible near the shore, hop in, rev the engine a bit, put on a little Steely Dan, and go off into the sunset. Perhaps it was contrived, but I liked the photo nonetheless.
A friend of mine is DJing at a newish hipster hangout downtown tonight, so we might check that out. However, I feel much more like getting some wine and finishing off The Muppets Take Manhatten. I'm definitely playing things by ear tonight.
Two quick notes: James Lileks has said all that needs to be said about Battlefield Earth, and I got a couple new CDs today. Take a gander, yo.
Sometimes, I'm glad I don't work for a British lending company. How humiliating is this? I also heard they made a Protestant employee wear a Pope costume.
(listening to: The Rolling Stones: Singles Collection, The London Years, Disc 2)
Another day, another dead-log. Jeff over at lostforlife has decided to stop writing. Well, not *stop* writing, but stop writing on his weblog. I really liked his site, it was simple, filled with stories (mostly about going to see movies, everywhere), and was an honest dialogue on the ups and downs of life. You could almost see his moods come and go, I really dug it.
The funny thing is, it seems that he quit for almost the same reason I stopped logging a couple years ago. I really liked doing it, I still like going back and reading it, but people were starting to complain that I didn't talk about them enough. It was really frustrating, getting emails saying "why didn't you talk about that party we went to last week, that was really fun and we had a good time, what, do you not like me or something?" I'm glad that I'm in a place now where I don't worry about that sort of shite anymore. I'm also glad that Miss Rodeo America gives me so much encouragement, it's like nothing I've ever experienced before.
So I really like this Rolling Stones CD. I've always hated the Stones, but I think that's 'cause people have played me the wrong stuff. This is early stuff, I especially like that song Mother's Little Helper, so bluesy, so great.
All the bosses (read: people who have their own office) are gone off-site today, so everyone is totally relaxed, chatty, and pleasant. I knew when I woke up today that it would be good. Voila.
Got home to find a message from my brother: no playing music tonight, too sick. Damn. So, now I'm lounging around, listened to the new Low (don't know what I think yet, not really sure about it), and finally reviewed the Teenage Fanclub, Mercury, and Beach Boys records. Hold the mouse over the picture of the albums on the left to find out the information. I try and keep things short, nowadays.
Probably going to cook some mini-tacos and head to the local for a pint. Not much else on the agenda, one of those days, I guess.
(listening to: Aloha: That's Your Fire)
Sniffly. Hungry. Feet hurt a bit. Bump & grind, bump & grind. Nobody is updating anything today, there is a lot of pacing going on. I played soccer with a couple cardboard boxes earlier until I noticed everyone was staring at me.
Going to play some more music with the brother tonight, I'm getting to like these every-couple-week jam sessions we have going on. Once we get the recording equipment, we'll probably go into the studio much more often.
How are you today? Riding the wagon in the barrel.
New MP3 of the week. Well, there will be in a few minutes when the thing finishes uploading. Then I'll have a nice evening of sitting back, drinking somg Cuba Libres, watching Xanadu and The Muppetts Take Manhatten while my computer is busy downloading the new Low album. Who can ask for more?
Ok, this MP3 of the week. It's a bit. It's a bit, well, *uncool*. I know this, but I've always had a soft spot for Cracker ever since the 1st chair trombone player in my high school wind ensembled recommended their 1st album to me. I listened to that album almost non-stop on a trip to Idaho with my dad, and although I evenentually sold it when I attempted to purge my record collection of the "evil major labels" during the punk-as-fuck years, I have since re-purchased it, along with Kerosene Hat. When "Get Off This" came on, it was flashback city. This was a minor hit in 1993, at least it was on the "alternative" radio station near my mother's house. So, don't think it's cool, but enjoy it. Ok? Ok.
(listening to: Aerial M: Post Global Music)
Exceptionally lovely morning. It's sunny outside, not too cold. I have my feet wrapped up in the hood of my parka to keep them warm, got a nice pot of coffee poured into our little fish tea set, and some good music on.
I'm very, very slowly downloading the new Low album from Napster. I guess I really could wait until February 6 to hear it, but why do that when I can have it today? I need some new music anyway, ever since I started bringing my minidisc to work, I'm constantly running out of things to listen to. I swear, I've listened to the Beatles' White Album 400 times already this year.
I got a couple of the radiohead songs from the next album yesterday. They were debuted at the Sundance Film Festival and of course someone recorded them while standing there. The sound quality is, well, disappointing, but the songs sound like they're very good. I've heard them both live and was very impressed, they are strange, building, and alot heavier than anything on Kid A. If you really want to download them, you're almost better off finding a good live version instead of these. The vocals distort quite a bit, which gets annoying since you can still tell they're done beautifully.
Yesterday was a gorgeous day, so we made the most of it and took the train out to the zoo and walked around there for a couple hours. The place was filled with kids. Why is it that kids always love animals and want to go to zoos? I think zoos and animals are almost seen more as an attraction for youth and not for adults, although I had an absolutely wonderful time. My favorites were the Otters, which we watched swim around and come right up to us for quite a long time. The Tigers were feeding and we watched them rip open burlap bags filled with meat. I also liked the Chimps who stared at all the people as if they were pathetic for being so nosey. People do the stupidest thing whilst around animals, always waving and pointing and whistling and talking at them, as if they're toys that should always be performing for them. We were convinced that the Orang-utans would stick out their arms at people just to watch all the people stick their arms out back at them. A game of "look what all the stupid humans will do." We rode the swings on the way out, which is *still* a really fun thing to do, although my stomach wasn't liking too much of it and I was paranoid that some little kid was going to walk behind me and that I'd plow into them and send them flying into a tree. It was a wonderful afternoon. When we got back home we gorged ourselves on Italian food and crashed for a couple hours.
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