Author: brian

i’m divided on this issue: is the fact that i’m trying to go a whole week with my wallet essentially empty so that i have money to buy christmas presents a sign of generosity and self-sacrifice for my friends and family on my part, or a sign that our capitalist society has brainwashed me into thinking the only way to express my love for others is through consuming?

or am i just the best gift-giver ever? seriously, i think of great stuff — my friends are gonna be so happy. my family is going to be so happy. my credit card company is going to be so happy. i love christmas!

[now hearing this: rilo kiley, when oh when will your new album arrive?]

i’m a little worried. the other day justin told me, over one of our weekly work-day lunches, that he feels like his brain is rotting. that he doesn’t think enough about things, just does them. at first i just passed it off, but then that night i was at home reading, and finished another book. then i wrote that book in my little list of books i’ve read, which i’ve been keeping since last year. here’s when i started to worry: i looked up the list at the other books i’ve read since the beginning of 2003, and at least a couple i don’t think i remember well enough to summarize or explain. sure, that’s only two, and one was an esoteric nonfiction essay by camus which i read hastily for a class.

but still, what happened? i spent several hours consuming both of these books only half a year ago, and now they’re essentially gone. i have vague emotional memories of thinking they were ‘good’ or ‘beautiful’ or ‘sad’; but where is the rest?

and it’s worse with finer details. i read brothers karamazov just this summer, and i couldn’t name the three brothers when i was thinking about it last week — the three main characters of the book i read four months prior (i can’t even tell you the name of the protagonist from something i read in october). i could tell you the ins and outs of the story, but the names i had to look up to make myself feel better. although i’m still not certain enough to type them out right now on here.

so what’s the problem? am i somehow doing it wrong? am i just not as smart as i like to think i am? do i have the wrong kind of memory programming? am i reading too much and not letting it sink in enough? am i just not thinking?

or does it just not matter, and that’s why i don’t remember. when somehow i can recall a bit of dialog from the simpsons that relates to almost any situation, and recite most of the dialog from wayne’s world or office space at a moment’s notice.

can you imagine if i could quote great literature the way most of my generation can quote the simpsons? i’d be the smartest guy you know without any friends.

i’ve also seen a lot of movies lately, some great, some not. you can glean the recommendations versus the warnings from these:

les triplettes de belleville – 2 stars

if you go in expecting a really amazing piece of animation, you’ll be pleased to get it for sure — it’s an outstanding work. if you go in hoping for a good movie, like i did… well, you will have wished you spent those 8 dollars on a pizza, like i did too. it’s hard to get into a story with no dialogue and no characters you get emotionally attached to, at least for me. and i could have really murdered a pizza too.

dead man – 5 stars

jim jarmusch film starring johnny depp and a lot of cameos. fantastic characters, music from neil young, delicious pacing, cool dialogue. slow, but terrific.

sabrina – 2 stars

audrey is always adorable, but this one had way less personality than roman holiday, which i would rather watch any time.

raising arizona – 3 stars

a little slapsticky, but still surprisingly literate for a kidnapping movie. always love the coens. what’s with nick cage’s hair though?

elf – 3 stars

if you’re hesitating because it looks like a kids’ movie, well, it is, but if you’re a fan of will ferrell at all it’s definitely still worth it and a better christmas movie than seeing jim carrey butcher a childhood classic.

the weekend flew by as if it were missing a day, i don’t know what happened. i got to see my dear friend shannon for the first real time since graduation, which was easily the highlight; she seems to be just as cool as she ever was even if she has an uncommon fascination with BCS rankings and is probably still crying after yesterday’s bowl game announcements. that along with watching some of the spike jonze and michel gondry dvd’s with jen last night (now i don’t have to buy them to see all the cool shit… ha!), and a solid ozma show friday night made for a decent time while it lasted though. the real treat is that this begins only two more weeks before our holiday break: wednesday the 24th through thursday the 1st. apply a few unused personal days here and there and voila!… i get a 16 day vacation beginning 11 days from now. can you feel me jittering with excitement?

i read a whole lot over thanksgiving week, but don’t have too much to say about it. but to keep the record accurate…

trainspotting – irvine welsh – 3 stars

i liked the book better than the movie, for starters. the movie felt like a party/drug film that got way more credit than it deserved. the book, however, is a very human story of the choices involved with battling addiction. once you get used to the scottish spellings it’s not bad and there are some great passages of reflection on life on and off drugs. still, it wasn’t something i’d read again or really recommend strongly.

the neal pollack anthology of american literature – neal pollack – 4 stars

pollack is obviously both very smart and well-versed in literature, as well as very funny. in that, this book was great, because i laughed a lot and i appreciated his tactics. all the same, if i were his writing teacher i’d prompt him to branch out, because as funny as the little details are, the book as a whole is all based on essentially one joke. because of this, even funny passages start approaching tedium by the end. since it was a quick and fun read though, it’s definitely worth the few hours it’ll take you to chuckle your way through over a long weekend.

today i have eaten 5 donuts and one sizeable piece of pumpkin cheesecake, and drank some water.

i think tonight i should try just eating a bag of sugar with a ladle instead of bothering with all this chewing bullshit.

i also have to call the girl back i met before thanksgiving. when i called her last week she told me about her serious back problems and how they had to give her a shot in the spine. is that cool or what? never question my taste in women ever again.

two indie rock giants i had neglected

one: guided by voices – human amusements at hourly rates – 5 stars

guided by voices is one of those bands i always read about in interviews as so-and-so’s influences, or heard about yet another of their new cd’s coming out, and yet i persisted in never picking up any of their music. i think i was just so intimidated by their catalog i didn’t know where to start, so i lived in GBV ignorance. lucky for suckers like me, they just released an excellent workshop course in pollardism in the form of a best-of cd. yeah, it’s not as cool as owning all the lp’s, but fuck you, this cd is an amazing buy for a novice with 10 dollars. that’s right, ten dollars! and almost every song on here is great — so just leave my cred alone while i catch up on this stuff, okay?

ps: this week’s pay day song is off this very cd, so check out motor away if you haven’t already. i won’t tell anyone.

two: stephen malkmus live at the el rey, 12/1/03 – 5 stars

holy shit. i have a few pavement cd’s, which i love, but i’m sorry stephen, i had been slacking off since you went solo. i downloaded a few mp3’s at some point and they’re okay, but i must not have been listening or something. or maybe it’s one of those all-or-nothing things where the album is better than the sum of its parts. but i apologize profusely, because you slapped me around and taught me a lesson last night at that show. i can honestly say i’ve never heard such an expressive guitarist live in concert. over the course of a few songs you became one of my favorite guitar players, songwriters, whatever else you do that i might not have even noticed. but you were good. very good. i felt every different place you took me with that thing, and i liked it. as soon as christmas shopping season is over and i can start buying material things for myself again, guess who’s making a special trip to amoeba in your honor? okay don’t guess, it’s me, i love you.

friday night, living it up at the homestead. sure it isn’t much of an adventure, but you can’t beat the wonderful things like thanksgiving dinner and putting up a christmas tree and watching your first few christmas movies with the family. aww, too cute, gag me, i know.

and already tomorrow i’ll be flying home well-rested and fed, ready to return here in only three weeks for the big week of christmas fun. i already can’t wait and already have to remember to bring my playstation. and more books, lots of books.

this might speak volumes of me, i’m not sure: on the way out here, for the first time probably ever, i was seated in a row with two young women in roughly my age bracket (i almost always get the old people). not only that, i was also in the middle seat, another rarity. what good fortune! you may think. to my left, a pretty brunette, wholesome looking, possibly a year or two older. on my right, an attractive and stylish/funky girl who’s probably a year or two younger, i predict. could be a fun trip. within a few moments of take off, the older has given herself away as a texan as she asked if “y’all could excuse me for a second” to the bathroom from her window seat, at which point the other takes her cue to strike up a conversation with me — i later found out that was the moment she determined the other girl wasn’t my girlfriend and saw the opening.

she’s talkative, smart, is into music — we exchange ipods for a once-over — and is interested in what i’m reading, pulls a nabokov reference on me… so i totally ignore the other woman who comes back and starts grading chemistry quizzes on her tray table (a college TA?! a young high school teacher?! god that could be so hot! what was i thinking!?), but it’s okay because things with this girl are going well and she’s from LA; a much better bet.

then naturally, as things progress and the younger girl and i are flirting and talking, it turns out that she is still in high school. that’s right, i seem to prefer the company of people who still have curfews and study halls to that of sexy young professionals. good job brian, that really shows where you are in life.

of course, she did seem to purposely slip in the fact that she had recently had her eighteenth birthday, so perhaps i should have given her my card…

or perhaps i should just have another slice of nice wholesome pumpkin pie. can’t wait to see what happens on that flight back.

[now hearing this: the desperate need for my own stereo again.]

it’s going to be an exciting weekend. not only will i get to air-test my ipod on its first flight and attendant airport waiting time, but i will also get to attempt to eat one to two pies worth of delicious motherly desserts over a span of about 2 days. my siblings won’t know what hit ’em, and by the time they figure it out i’ll be on a plane back to the safe welcoming haven of los angeles. ha!

i also imagine i will tear through at least a couple books in these few days, which will be exciting as well, in a way that only nerds like myself can relate to.

but as i am, of course, going to be spending the rest of the week relaxing at home with my family, i will either not be blogging because i don’t have much to say, or blogging a lot because i don’t have much to do. could be either one, but happy thanksgiving just in case.

[now hearing this: hey mercedes]

decent weekend. friday night i drank a glass of beer a yard long, which was more of an ordeal than a pleasure. i sure did drink a glass of beer a yard long though. saturday night i went to a birthday party and talked to a cool girl who wrote her phone number on my hand. i have to call her back tonight and figure out how to see her again someday.

if you want me to die, then this is your answer. i would love love love love LOVE to hang this on my wall — and it would go so well with my other posters. but if you buy this for me, i am going to be killed. don’t be so stupid. you don’t want me to die, do you? neither do i. it is a nice poster though.

plus: i love the movie american psycho. we watched it again last night after some delicious soup from steff and after arrested development wrapped up (which is great, by the way. driving the stair car left over from the recently-sold family jet was brilliant). i can’t possibly grow tired of hearing that dialogue. the tone of every conversation between the wall street guys is priceless.

i have to return some videotapes.

[now hearing this: mad guided by voices, for real.]