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the second plan show, at the house of blues in anaheim (specifically downtown disney, the shopping center attached to the happiest place on earth. what a weird place for an indie rock show, eh?) was on par if not better than the one that preceded it. i had a fantastic time, plus they played a couple they didn’t the night before i was pleased to hear — ‘pay for the piano’, ‘the other side’, and ‘academy award’ which someone requested the night prior and they rejected but promised to re-learn for the next night’s show. i thought they were bullshitting but they did it, and i love that song. plus for the ‘joke’s over’ jam at the end cex got on stage with them and they did a nice little duet/showdown and got really into it and all jumped around a lot at the end. that still gets me, i don’t care what the kids say. just like i don’t care how dorky it was to get the tour poster signed by all four of them before i left; it simply had to be done.

today was great and should continue to be for the next few hours. watched a movie, hung with my buddy josh. going out with a lady this evenin’…lovely.

oh, and check this weird stuff out. i got this email because i’m on a fox searchlight mailing list somehow, but it was actually a really interesting short essay by producer robert cort (who recently released a book called ACTION! that ended:

…But the onus for better, more original films also rests with you the moviegoers. Boycott the trash. Try foreign and independent films. Write studio heads to complain – it’s not that hard to get their email addresses. Complain to your theater managers. If you’re vocal, people will eventually hear. Because if you the underserved remain silent while the over-served kids stomp at the garbage they’re given, then you will have no one to blame but yourselves.

how odd is that? a film company authorized the sending a newsletter with that paragraph in it. i love it! i wonder if they even read it before they sent it out? because i’m pretty sure the trash he’s talking about probably comes from 20th century fox, fox searchlight’s parent company, just as much as any other major studio. i’m glad he snuck it through though because i totally agree with him and was happy to hear it coming from someone on the inside.

[now hearing this: elliott smith.]

in the mens’ room just now, i didn’t just see a man firing away with no support, as it were, which normally creeps me out anyway; but i saw a man going no-handed while he brushed his teeth. at a urinal? what!? i’ve never seen that before in my life. shouldn’t those two activities cancel out or something?

i can only hope that some day i am important enough that i cannot waste precious minutes of my impressively valuable time at the sink for my vital 3:30pm workday toothbrushing (the benefits of which someone of lesser importance couldn’t hope to understand) and am forced to multitask in this fashion. a true sign of relevance.

oh, dismemberment plan. how i’m going to miss you. last night’s show did so many things, like made me laugh at your friend cex, whose banter probably outweighs his music in entertainment value, but puts on a great all-around show. and laugh even more at all your jokes at the expense of the postal service (despite jimmy apparently being present at the show…tee hee!), bright eyes, and even yourselves. it made me dance and sing as well, which not even all the bands i like enough to go see live can always do. it even made me forget that i was very hungry from skipping dinner and very tired of standing around, having arrived to early wearing shoes with insufficient padding to deal with long bouts of verticality, at least until the encore was over and my life of possibilities was concerned mainly with sitting down at an in-n-out burger for dinner. for all of this, i thank you.

but also request that tonight’s show in anaheim does not fall far short of last night’s show, because i would prefer to remember my live plan experiences ending on a high note. adieu.

[now hearing this: trying to decide which of their songs to try to get them to play tonight in their all-request set that they didn’t already play. i’m thinking ‘manipulate me’ is probably the most likely candidate right now.]

excerpt from mcsweeney’s today, entitled, “rounder characters in no time flat!”:

Tip No. 2: Give your characters some kind of superpower.

Sure, we remember Holden Caulfield as the classic, coming-of-age antihero of Catcher in the Rye, but would we be as drawn to him if Salinger had neglected to give Holden the ability to kill with his thoughts?

Similarly, without the power of flight, Lolita’s Humbert Humbert would be just a pervert with a crush on a fourteen-year-old.

i think that’s fantastic. literary humor just knocks my socks off.

welcome lunch day. because i was so unwelcome all the days before today. no, it was just finally workable for everyone to leave for a long lunch. but coming back here at quarter past two having had 3-4 beers in an hour and a half is a little strange. more so because it was paid for by the office. being a grown up is so weird. plus now i have to sit here working when the aftereffects are really just making me want to go to sleep. what a peculiar wednesday.

however, with d-plan farewell shows both thursday and friday night, the week is looking to shape up just fine; so i’m not too worried. just gotta get through the end of the day without zoning out too badly. i need a glass of water.

lazy diarist easily distracted by flashing pictures; rabid fans hungry for updates.

sorry collapsing, a lot of my free time has been devoted to my new girlfriend, netflix. if only she ever bought me dinner to go with the movies, we might be on to something. i am tearing through my queue though, seeing several movies i’ve been meaning to see forever (the whole reason i joined up) and loving my re-entry into the movie-buff realm. before this i felt like i was losing touch with the film community, i’d seen so few things this year. being back on the horse though, let me recommend a few movies to you if you haven’t already seen them. and i hate reviews that take the fun out of movies so mine will be careful not to.

the spanish prisoner – 4 stars (out of 5)

this was a great flick. twisty con movie from david mamet, with a very mamet script full of literate dialogue. kind of strange characters but definitely fun to watch and any doubts you may have will subside once you get into it.

miller’s crossing – 5 stars (out of 6…just kidding)

why hadn’t i seen this movie a long time ago? a mobster movie from the directors of the big lebowski? starring gabriel byrne and john turturro (possibly the best character actor ever), plus steve buscemi and that guy with the moustache whose name i don’t know but who was also the shop owner in the crow and the gumshoe in lebowski, and who nailed his part in this movie? and all in a film with tommyguns, which are like spanish fly to my cinematic sex drive? don’t make the same mistake i did. i plan on buying this on dvd as soon as i can, it was so great, so you can even borrow it if you have to.

the maltese falcon – 4 stars

classic for a reason; good plot and cool characters in a sam spade story make it hard to go wrong by my tastes, but i could admit to this possibly being a guy movie. bogey don’t take guff from nobody. plus watching movies from 1941 makes you feel classy.

and that’s only the first week, so expect a slew more over the next few months until my intervention — i think i may have a dvd addiction.

[now hearing this: nada.]

i helped my future roommate, gino, unload a u-haul of his big stuff into the new place last night, which gave me some jitters. how exciting, thinking about the nicer neighborhood we’re living in, and how the living room should be set up, and taking a break to sit on the mostly bare floor of our future home eating fast food. moving into new places is so exciting. carrying couches up elevators and down hallways isn’t exactly a thrill ride, but the potential of a new location is fun to think about.

sadly those jitters are accompanied by the moving out ones of thinking about leaving the house i’m in now. after helping him move from about 10 to 1, i came home and sat around with my housemates for a while before i went to bed, and they’re too great to think about parting ways with. it’s not a topic i enjoy dwelling on. i keep trying to focus on how much more fun we can have in the next couple months before the dreaded july 31st, and mostly it’s working, so i’m going to stick with it. i don’t want to picture not being able to come home and have an impromptu porch barbeque with my favorite people in the world; even if our house is falling apart and not close to anything. entirely beside the point.

[now hearing this: nothing. but we watched part of ghostbusters on tbs last night, and boy was the soundtrack to that pretty lame-tastic. and how did rick moranis make a career out of being an annoying dork?]

stressful busy, the kind of busy where you feel like there are a thousand things piling up on your back and you don’t want to do any of them and they’re going to crush you if you stop to take a breath, and all you want to do is come home and go to sleep and retract from the world for a few days, is one of the worst feelings. no one likes to feel like their life has them in its teeth and they’re being flung back and forth like a pork chop in a bulldog’s teeth. you should be the dog, not the chop.

that’s why i’m glad today was nothing like that. i felt great today; today wasn’t stressful busy at all. today was invigorating busy. i worked from 9 to 7 and probably did more varied and separate little tasks today than i have in a while at work. but i felt on top of it. i ran all over the place all day mailing this, checking that, fetching this, meeting with this person, handing forms over to that person. but the day flew by and i didn’t dislike a second of it. 7 came without me even feeling like i was stalling at any point along the way. then i came home and called up my future roommate — we officially got the apartment we decided on over the weekend: victory! — dropped off my part of a deposit check so he can start moving in tomorrow while i’m at work, then went out to a late dinner with a good friend who was upset about leaving her place now. the sad part of finishing school is starting to set in for some of us. people are moving away. but we went out to a good little restaurant called doughboy’s and had a tasty meal and talked about the girl i’m chasing and the trip to england she’s leaving for tomorrow, and i felt very young-adult-on-the-town.

i love days where i feel like i am very much who i want to be right now, and today was one of them. i really like my job, i’m excited about the new place, i love my friends (even the ones who are moving soon), and i especially love that i can go out any night of the week because nothing ever has to be done by the next morning anymore. the nights are mine and i’m making good use of them, goddammit.

if only there were a few more hours of it. well, i guess i can squeeze one more out of this one to read a few more chapters of glamorama at least. just to make it a little more full before i call it a day.

[now hearing this: rilo kiley – the execution of all things… “and sometimes when you’re on, you’re really fucking on…”

happy memorial day america!

happy birthday roommate dominic (who i had to wake up at 8 to bring to the airport for his flight to vegas)!

happy four day work week, friends.

hard to post when you’re having so much damn fun being a post-student human being. there’s just no time.

i don’t know if that’s really true. i’ve been happy as a clam lately though. friday especially was tip top. half day at work to wrap up my first week as a young professional; that’s great. getting off early and finally finding an apartment to live in after the house lease runs out, which we like and in a neighborhood we’re excited about; that’s great. (and even though we’re moving away from school, it’s probably closer to the new house of some friends of mine than i was when i lived here and they lived in a place on the other side of campus. it’s a terribly exciting coincidence.) coming home and hanging out with the chums on the verge of a three day weekend; that’s great. and going out to a party with some of my favorite people that don’t live close anymore who were up for the evening; that’s a nice way to finish it all off.

the rest of the weekend’s been pretty up to par too. lots of relaxing yesterday and some great thrift store finds today — 6 sweet new shirts and a new coffee table all for less than 35 dollars. who’s got the skills. plus we dove into my new netflix experience today, which i’m really excited about, with the movie haiku tunnel. it might not blow your socks off or anything but i thought it was great stuff. if you appreciate office comedies with some really weird characters and an unattractive fat man as the main character who apparently really likes the pixies — the soundtrack was almost entirely pixies stuff, i swear. it was kind of weird but made me want to listen to surfer rosa. i certainly lauhed enough to recommend it.

tomorrow is a national holiday, so you know what that means: barbeque. drop by for some beef and popsicles if you’re in the ‘hood around 3.

and before i’m off, a makeshift song of the week. honestly, i have been really bad about new music lately. i haven’t bought a cd in weeks and haven’t downloaded anything really breakthrough, but these things go in cycles anyway so i’m not worried. it does mean i’m sort of in a shelf-pulling mood lately though, grabbing lots of old stuff i hadn’t played in months, and even loading some of it onto my ipod, wishing i’d thought of that earlier. big example being analphabetapolothology from cap’n jazz. what a great cd. the volume knob has definitely been getting a few clicks when one of their songs comes on shuffle. try for example oh messy life. badass.

[now hearing this: alkaline trio – good mourning, and still not so sure how i feel about it.]