Author: briancollapsing

take this, northerners… last night included a trip to huntington beach, a bonfire and some tasty s’mores. hint: if you forget to bring sticks or coathangers to roast marshmellows over the fire, you can unbend the wires that held your champagne bottle shut and use those. or so i’m told. (note–no, i didn’t drink any, and i don’t need alcohol to have fun)(note to the note–this is more me reassuring myself than something you need to know).

and tonight? a trip to the house of blues, where ticketmaster delights in its monopolistic stranglehold over young music fans who don’t want to risk not getting tickets to shows, where valet parking prices are more unreasonably high than february temperatures in los angeles, and where alkaline trio gets a chance to prove to me they can still rock my ass. oh, and i’ll be damned if i don’t get some in n out tonight. double double delicious, i say!

i was just thinking about what i said yesterday — i actually did skip class to read a book. does that make me more of a bad kid for not going, or more of a nerd for reading? what a paradox. you might say i’m a puzzle wrapped in a riddle wrapped in an enigma. if you were the riddler, anyway (and if when given a riddler prompting you think of jim carrey instead of the excellent riddler from the animated series, then i pity your batman background. you can do better.)

moving on…weather.com told me just now, at 5:30pm on february 22nd, that it’s a chilly 82 degrees fahrenheit here in lovely downtown los angeles. what the hell is going on! it’s supposed to be WINTER. i was sweating today, coming back from class. it’s fucking february! now as some of you in wintry places may be saying, “quit your complaining, i slipped and fell on ice today” or “i’ve been wearing a sweater since october, shut your face brian.” i, however, put forward this detail: my sense of time is being entirely scrambled by this june weather in february. i get the feeling that we’re on summer’s doorstep, having somehow left out spring this year. but i don’t have a summer job, a place to stay this summer, or a host of other things figured out for the post-junior-year phase. i feel like i’m not ready for it to be right now. but since right now isn’t what it feels like, i guess everything is alright for now, then?

i’m just confused and unhappy. i want a damn winter. it hasn’t even really rained either, and last february it rained probably 25 days out of the month. i’m very concerned about all of this — in a way only a very specific combination of final fantasy X and root beer can help put to rest.

to the batcave!

taking a short break from my normal steady diet of fiction, i’m currently reading a book by dan savage called the kid. it’s about two men who want to adopt a child together, it’s a true story, and it’s terrific. i’ve always been of the mind that having children was either something that didn’t interest me (why should i when i can spend all that money on myself instead? expensive stereos, fast cars, swanky vacations, designer blue jeans…), or would be something that i would “come to realize” as i grew much older and more settled. nothing to think about right now, not a goal i have for myself, but something i may want to do some day. surprisingly, this book of all books is sort of making me think about all that stuff now, which is scary, sure; but this guy really gets at the heart of things, and is very funny too. i’m really enjoying it. a lot. i think i may skip my afternoon class today to read it because anthropology isn’t quite as relevant or entertaining to me.

here’s an interesting excerpt i just read, which doesn’t show how fun to read or how clever savage is, but does sort of make you think or make a little political statement. i don’t want to discuss it as much as share it, because i pretty much agree with what he says. anyway, check it out if you like:

“fertile couples have complete autonomy. they can have as many pentagrams and dead chickens as they like in their living rooms, with no agency standing in judgment. they can prove themselves unfit after having a baby, but no one tells fertile straight people they can’t have babies in the first place. twelve-year-olds have babies, insane people have babies, drug addicts have babies, dirt-poor people have babies, drunks have babies, people who’ve had their babies taken away from them have more babies. none of these people would get through an adoption agency’s home study. only adoptive parents have to prove themselves fit.”

(fixed bad link to record label above)

let’s not go into personal matters. especially not today. i’m sure you understand.

but how about music? the big question to me today is tribute albums. are they a good idea? they may sound like one, but actually listening to them in most cases would tend to show you that no, they’re not such a good idea. why take a band everyone loves, and put out a whole disc’s worth of their songs covered by bands that are not the band you actually love, but a bunch of other people who love the band you love doing not-as-good a job at playing the songs you love by the band you love? it just doesn’t seem like a good musical decision.

now i will admit to liking quite a few cover songs in my day, some quite more than the original, in a lot of cases. jawbox’s “cornflake girl” cover is fantastic. if you don’t find it fun to listen to reggie and the full effect covering slayer’s “raining blood”, then i pity you (sidenote: when they played live here on the vagrant tour last august, they fucking opened with that song. it was a truly sublime musical moment). i really dig a few of the covers braid did, “exploding boy” covered by alkaline trio… i’m sure there are others too. but i don’t think i’ve ever heard a tribute/cover cd that was a majority of really well-done songs.

the reason i had been thinking of this is because the song of the week, which i’ve been listening to a lot lately, is going to have to be the good life, the classic weezer song, covered by the impossibles. i found out well after i had found the song (thank you audiogalaxy) that this is on a cd that was just released called rock music: a tribute to weezer. imagine if you will — all your favorite weezer songs (from the heyday of weezer, not a single cover from the green album, from what i understand), played by indie/punk bands, or whatever you might call them. if you’re me, this has potential, until you think, “wait, but i liked the weezer songs the way they were already”. i don’t know how badly i need to hear dashboard confessional sing anything, let alone an old weezer favorite. however, i stand by my old favorites the impossibles in their decision, because i think they did a really great job of making the song their own and maintaining the integrity of the original. naturally, though, i am biased because i love them.

i’ll leave you to decide, anyway. you can hear midtown covering “suzanne” on the label’s site if you like. they have the cd at the radio station here too, so you can listen and request stuff (ha ha..), but more importantly, i can check it out more and see what the verdict will be for myself. if i keep my expectations low though, maybe it won’t let me down.

“i wanna go back, i wanna go back, and i don’t even know how i got off the track…”

indulge me in some ego-stroking.

who doesn’t love it when they get that little comment here or there that just makes you think maybe you’re good at something after all. sure, it’s only a one-page reading-response memo for business communication class. sure it wasn’t really a very well-thought-out piece of writing, or something to be proud of. but who wouldn’t be inwardly beaming when their professor (one of few i consider very intelligent and whom i really respect as a professor and as an intellect) writes a note at the top of their paper that says, “brian — your writing is admirably clear and articulate”.

it wasn’t something he had to do, and it’s the only comment he made. now, i realize what i write here usually wouldn’t give you the same impression, but it’s little things like that comment that give me hope all the same. maybe i’m not useless. maybe there’s a glimmer of talent or even acquired skill somewhere buried under all the distractions and half-hearted attempts. maybe i’m sort of good at something, and people will respect me for that.

i’d certainly like to hope so.

i think presidents are so great. well, i think so on presidents day when they get me a day off. in a couple years when i don’t get presidents day off anymore, you can bet i’m gonna stop thinking so highly of presidents in general. stupid presidents.

i think i’m going to watch godfather pt. 2 again tonight. that movie is so good and i have these extra three and a half hours lying around taking up space, i think i should just get rid of them.

i think life would be a lot cooler if i had a car. maybe i should steal one. or start trying to plan out my financial future so it would make sense to buy one in the not-so-distant future.

i think that the above thought is due largely to two things: (1) living in los angeles where not having a car is as good as having no legs. and (2) watching a whole reel of volkswagen commercials in advertising class last thursday. i mean, they made me want a passat soooooo bad . . .

i think it’s time to hit the couch.

in the span of a month a very nice college boy can go from having never had a drink in his life to carrying the obligatory red-plastic-college-party-cups three nights running. and not filled with water or kool-aid. i don’t know what’s happened to me. i do know that it’s not such a bad thing though. very under control. i can quit at any time.

i keep thinking of the end of the simpsons episode with rodney dangerfield, where everyone suddenly has martinis and are wearing leis (lays? leighs? hawaiian flower thingies?), and marge asks, “where did all this booze come from?” and homer gets leid (laid? layed?…) and gets a drink handed to him from offscreen and just says, “it’s a party, marge.” then that song that goes, “that’s the way you want it, any way you need it…” by journey comes on. what a great bit.

i’ve been saying “it’s a party marge” all weekend. and at the party friday night, they played that journey song and i sang it into a tv remote control which i found could be used as a prop microphone, because i am clever.

but i’m just living the college life and doing it moderately so concern yourself no more. of course, today i’m living the life of a very boring college boy. i don’t think i’ve done a single thing besides go to the grocery store. i bought taquitos and ice cream. time for a taquito sundae? (sunday? sun-deigh? okay, joke’s over) no, that’s disgusting. i bought lots of other things too., but they’re not as fun to say as taquito or as fun to eat as deep dish apple pie ice cream. hot damn that stuff rings my ice cream bell, figuratively speaking.

i think the trick to turning the story of the last few days — which didn’t really contain any great stories — into something interesting, is talking like a damn fool about it all. or maybe i just sound like a damn boring fool instead. who can say really.

but the real take away here is that if you have vanilla twist smirnoff and put it into coke, it tastes like vanilla coke. holy god, new mixed drink of choice. highly recommended.

and there’s not school tomorrow. this weekend is just too good, almost.

take that!

finished less than zero in two days. it was… well, it was really good. in my mind. but at the same time i could see how someone could not like it at all. add seasonings to taste, you know? i’d still recommend it though.

i’m just so glad i finished a book in only two days. i decided recently, and rather arbitrarily, to try to read 35 books this year. i’ve never kept track of the number of books i’ve read over a whole year, but i’m going to do it this year, so i just figured, “okay, i’ve read 4 so far (this was last week i think), and i think i read the last one since this month started. if i say three per month then, as an average, and keep that up, 12 times three is 36. and i like nice round numbers so we’ll go with 35.”

and hence a goal has been set. personally, i think it will be easy. the goal may be to just see how early in the year i can get to 35, because i’ve been reading an awful lot lately. but of course, there are always those busy periods, or those burnt out periods where video games seem like such a better idea…

i’ll keep you updated, naturally. now to find something better to do than sit here at 10 on friday.

*coughlosercough*

did i mention i finished reading gulliver’s travels? well i did. can’t say it was a real page-turner, that one, but there were some meritous qualities all the same.

now i’ve moved on to less than zero, which i give myself maybe 3 days before i finish. it reads so fast and i like ellis’s writing a lot so it should get polished off in no time. good book so far. i’m all about disenchantment.

i did notice just now though (prompting this blog), that he used the exact same scene in this book as he did later in american psycho. i mean, exactly the same scene. same dialogue and all. after sex, girl says “will you call me before [christmas in LTZ, easter in AP]?” guy says, “sure”. girl says, “if i don’t see you, have a good [holiday from before].” guy says, “i will” guy starts to leave room. girl says, “hey [clay in LTZ, patrick in AP]?” guy stops but doesn’t look at girl on the way out. then says “yeah?” . girl replies, “nothing.”…. end of scene.

now i want to go buy his other books just to see if he does this every time. i wonder if he feels somehow that this scene encapsulates his entire worldview, and so he needs to make sure it gets across through repetition.

and i think i know how he feels if it does.