being a bit behind on my blogroll reading during the last busy week or so, i didn’t realize the music blog community was so abuzz about the last few live mountain goats shows, with one point of particular excitement being the serendipitously sublime sing-along version of ‘no children’ that everyone got to be a part of. since he was ill, he couldn’t sing it; but it’s such a spectacular song you can hardly leave it off the set list out of fairness to the audience.

largehearted boy has a recording from the show in san francisco, and hearing it again reminds me how fun a moment that was. i think only with a song that great and a singer that well-liked by his fans can you get a room full of hip indie kids to drop all pretensions and sing their hearts out like that. not to mention the impressive percentage of people who know the lyrics backward and forward (myself included). it was pretty inspiring. his reaction on this recording says it all.

nearly as exciting though is having stumbled upon marathonpacks, who’d posted a studio version of one of the songs of the goats’ upcoming new album get lonely that appears on some pitchfork comp or other. those details don’t interest me nearly as much as having an mp3 of a new track to listen to probably more than i should. and lucky for me, it was the one of i think three songs he played last week off the new album where right in the middle i thought to myself, “oooo, this is GOOD.”

i promise someday soon to write about something other than music, too, but it’s just so easy!

my good friend spencer has introduced me to the most marvelous firefox plugin, called stumble upon. it’s one of those collaborative filter deals where you thumbs-up or down any site, and the good stuff theoretically floats to the top. only it’s built into a toolbar with ratings, tagging, and of course the all important ‘stumble’ button where you just get taken to some random based on what you like and don’t like. today’s stumbling has turned me toward this brilliant piece of word math.

lazy posting this week, but the streets last weekend were decent despite my never being able to understand a word of any live hip hop show’s lyrics, no matter what. lady sov was slightly ill and pissed that her monitors weren’t working so she had a short set. the mountain goats wednesday were awesome as usual, but he too was getting over an illness so he said he had to play an all-quiet-songs set or avoid damaging his voice. a little bit disappointing that two acts i’ve been looking forward to seeing for over a month both were circumstancially forced into giving B-grade performances (who am i kidding, the goats were still an A, just a different kind of A). hopefully the futureheads haven’t caught whatever singer-virus is going around too.

so june seems to be big concert month after a long drought, and i mean long. other than coachella, i don’t think i’ve been to a single major show yet this year, which is truly pathetic. however things are looking up up up, as just this month i have streets & lady sovereign tomorrow night at the fonda, army navy & irving monday at the viper room, mountain goats wednesday at the troubadour (hooray!), and futureheads the following monday at the fonda again. plus at least two shows in july so far, flaming lips AND belle and sebastian both at the bowl. oh thank god, i’m not getting old, i’m just getting selective and bands tour more in the summer than the winter. smart on them. needless to say, i can’t wait to get back into the fray.

may summer blockbusters
and while on the topic of summer, have you been keeping up with your summer blockbusters so far? i’ve seen the big three i think so far — poseidon doesn’t count right? come on, you know nobody saw that shit — and i’m fairly disappointed. mission impossible III was great, i can’t lie. philip seymour hoffman as a cool villain, the action was good, the drama was high. not outstanding-good, but a solid movie.

x-men III (why am i seeing so many third iterations in such a short time span?) was a huuuuuge letdown. if you haven’t seen it by now i’m no longer concerned about vaguely hinting at the plot, so let me put it this way: killing a major character is a big deal. you don’t just do it because you’re a lazy writer looking to add drama. it better be a huge climax to a tense and gut-wrenching buildup, not just a way to get around working out problems with your crappy plot. and they don’t do it once, they do it THREE TIMES!? come on, man. besides that, they essentially castrate two other huge characters, erase half of the minor ones they introduced, never develop a few of the other ones (arcangel added exactly what to the movie?), and then give themselves an out at the end rendering the whole story essentially a do-over? give me a fucking break. when does the next batman come out?

and yes, this week i even broke down and saw the da vinci code, and i’m sort of at a loss on that one. i thought when i was lazily reading it that it was paced too much like a movie, but then watching the movie it was too much like reading because it was aaaallll expository dialogue. so you can’t win. the book created suspense in a really cheap way by using a three-page chapter structure, but then the movie had all these weird pauses where it was like being in school instead of a chase movie. what can you do? well, if you’re planning ahead, you’ll do one or the other and not both, because both are flawed but entertaining. however the dramatically delivered line, “i’ve got to get to a library” ranks nearly up there with, “get these mothafuckin’ snakes off this mothafuckin’ plane” in ridiculous quotability.

i’m a horrible horrible democrat! i didn’t vote yesterday in the primary/special elections. i try to read all this political commentary and stay abreast of what’s going on in our government, and then the one or possibly two days a year i’m called upon to do a little reading and subsequent decision-making i fail, ‘because i had a busy day’. it’s so disappointing.

however, at the same time i’m also relieved that my gut preference on the main office i was concerned with, primary candidates for the race for governor, still went the way i think i would have voted. so although i can’t list a lot of reasons i’m going to vote for you, mr. angelides (that is, not yet), i have to say i appreciate the fact that you are both passionate-sounding from the clips i’ve heard of you on NPR, and funny-looking from every picture i’ve seen of you so far on yours and the LA times’ sites. it’s a good start that you’re generally billed as ‘the more progressive candidate’ too. i’m generally for more progress.

i promise when it’s time to vote for who gets to serve instead of just who gets to run, i will show up and pick the best choice between you and kindgergarten cop, whoever that may be. and to do enough learning before then to know who that is.

so many little tidbits from the last week but maybe not that exciting, i’m just going to try to do something fun with them by pairing them in unlikely fashions:

three-day weekends are the best because you can fit so much fun into such a small span of time, BUT x-men 3: the last stand was pretty much stupid because they put so little effort into the script for such a big movie.

i’ve re-discovered my old love for making root beer floats on an almost-nightly basis, AND have recently purchased a brand-new, non-crappy, un-futon, real-deal bed for myself and re-discovered my old love of sleeping comfortably.

new addictions are fun! i can’t stop hurrying home to kill zombies in resident evil 4 lately; PLUS i can’t stop singing when drunk and near a microphone (see: creedence’s ‘bad moon rising’, oasis’s ‘wonderwall’, or the pinnacle, dirty dancing theme ‘the time of my life’ with my girlfriend).

you cannot have too much of a good thing. for example i have played beer pong at barbeques for three weekends in a row now, ON TOP OF making breakfast burritos two out of the last three sunday mornings. both with my special lady by my side (is that love or what?). i will not rest until i am undeniably talented at both of these pursuits.

see, way more fun than bullet points. i hate those. now i think it’s time for an amoeba trip.

this NY times article about blogging versus employment is funny. they make it sound like every other person blogging about work gossip either ends up fired or with a book deal. bitch, please. most people don’t care who annoys you at work, and if they do and you write using identifiable names or details and end up getting caught, it’s because you are not very smart.

incidentally, i chose a long long time ago the benefits of using my real name (old friends, relatives, etc. can easily find me, sometimes even by accident; i get to be the number one person in the world with my first and last name on google) versus those of writing anonymously (being able to air petty grievances, incriminating rants, or truly regrettable stories in a public diary without them being traceable). mostly because i find the internet a more useful tool for communication purposes than exhibitionism. plus, me doing something seedy or being pissed at someone one day doesn’t necessarily need to be recorded permanently anywhere other than my own memory, does it? it’d be like letting someone wiretap your brain. you may not be guilty of much, but it’s still just not a real good idea to have permanent records of everything.

i did have a slightly similar incident though during one of my college internships with a small company in the very infant days of collapsing (please do not go back in the archives to look, those old entries are embarrasing). i won’t bore you with details but i ended up erasing all references to them and moving on with my life. now i work for a successful large player in the advertising business, and their company no longer exists.

YES, i find that fairly satisfying. i’d like to think i brought them down from the inside.

**update…. holy crap, josh was on TV! what a travel nerd!**

…….

damn, yesterday was such a monday. i’m not usually a whiner about getting up and going to work because i love my job. but sometimes you get there and realize your brain is just not fully with you on this adventure, you know? i like thinking. contributing. being productive. but sometimes the circuits just don’t cooperate, as if they have their own agenda.

that’s why it was extra crappy that yesterday we worked a 14-hour day in preparation for one of those Very Important Meetings that happen every now and then, and i felt so bad. not because i didn’t want to be here, but more because i was guilty that i was so out of it and probably much less helpful and cheerfully positive than the brian my friends and associates have come to expect. it was a damn shame.

then to top it off in another ‘i’m not mad but this just sucks’ moment, my roommate kept me from crashing out to an episode of six feet under because he was watching a movie with our buddy josh when i got home. that could have been perfect — come home at 11, halfway through a decent flick, half-pay attention until you get sleepy, then nighty night. but it was war of the worlds. eeww.

i was forced to read my recent bane, the self-assigned, masochistically-900-page classic don quixote instead, ending up on page 226 after my fifth or sixth week in the undertaking. why do i have this odd compulsion to endure classics that i won’t really enjoy just so i can have them on my bookshelf without the fear of having to answer to the dreaded question, ‘did you read this?’ and having no intelligent response to its follow-up, ‘what did you think?’. my academic pride is so annoying sometimes.

luckily today it is beautifully sunny, i am prepared for as many hours as may be required of me (it always helps when you know it’s coming too, so you can be mentally ready not to go home during single-digit hours if necessary), plans have already surfaced to fill the upcoming holiday three-day-weekend, and i am wearing a purple shirt. i say, bring it on.

i’m in a great mood today because i’m working on some really fun and interesting stuff this week (challenge is good, i tell myself), and it’s a sunny friday afternoon. also, by not thinking about how jessica is having fun in vegas without me, or how i don’t get to see her most of the weekend. the best answer to absence making the heart grow fonder is to stay busy doing your own stuff so when the absent party returns, it’s like a nice surprise.

here are some good cd’s i’ve been listening to lately:

portastatic – bright ideas – 3 stars

i’ve always liked mac’s voice, and the man knows his way around indie/power-pop tunes. every time i listen to this cd, i enjoy it quite a bit. my only complaint is its somewhat short list of really punchy hooky moments. that means when i’m not listening to it, i don’t particularly wish i was. don’t get me wrong, ‘i wanna know girls’ is fantastic, and i bought the cd based solely on the strength of that one song. BUT, that one song i’ve had for free from the internet for a long time, so the rest of the album could have been a bit more full. one of those ‘really good cd i wouldn’t rush to recommend’ kind of situations, you know? like i’m sure in 6 month’s time, once it’s outgrown the stack of shiny new music that sits right next to my disc drive, i’ll put this on the shelf and quite possibly never pull it out again. then again, if i only ever bought timeless classics my collection would be pathetic, now wouldn’t it, so i can’t blame the album for my own limited attentions.

parts & labor – stay afraid – 5 stars

now THIS is what i’m talking about. just when i’m afraid i’m listening to a bit too much soulful writerly stuff — i think i OD’ed on jens lekman in april — this comes along to save the day and keep me awake. generally speaking, bands that stray into the category known as ‘noise’ i tend to roll my eyes at, but that’s because they have a tendency to stop making songs that i want to listen to in favor of sounds they want me to hear. or in some cases i would use the phrase ‘subject me to’.

this album is great, so so great, because it’s maybe a half-hour of noisy noisy songs instead of plain old noise. it reminds me slightly of trail of dead’s source tags & codes in its volume of sound, if with much less musical articulation. the vocals are blurry and yelled through a haze of drums and feedback, but who needs to sing along when you can just ROCK. the first track, ‘a great divide’, was what really sold me on them and you can get that from their downloads page. to be super nice and encourage you further to check them out if you like loudness, i’m going to slap up the cheerfully titled track death as well for a new pay day song.

i was pretty disappointed they had to go and have the worst booking agent ever, who placed them on stage at the echo the friday night before coachella. nice work in ensuring anyone with a few hundred dollars and inclination for good music had NO chance to see them play, buddy! i still faithfully look forward to their next less inconveniently planned outing. besides, with all the upcoming shows coming down the pipe — futureheads!… streets w/lady sov!!!… flaming lips at the bowl!!!… THE MOUNTAIN GOATS AT THE TROUBADOUR!!!!! — i think i will survive.

i want to blog more, i really do. my mind has been full of work-stuff at work and my time has been filled with fun-stuff at home, so i haven’t really been able to steal many minutes for the web lately. who cares!

or, i was just depressed that jessica and i only made it through one round in last weekend’s beer pong tournament of champions. for some reason i always feel being the host will give me some sort of super-special accuracy at tossing ping-pong balls into red party cups, but this had held painfully untrue. the only obvious answer: PRACTICE! and this is lucky because gino’s lady friend sarah requested the presence of my beer pong table at her birthday party this coming weekend, so i should have ample time for working on my arc.

new music stuff tomorrow probably; right now i think i want to go home and hang up some new art i finally got frames for.

Two words… Guitar hero II! I love E3.