two.points.collapsing

ha! mr. porter, biology king. being reminded of figures from your past you haven’t thought about for years is so much fun. it’s like seeing a favorite rerun old enough where you forgot all the jokes — all you remember was how funny they were. that guy used the phrase “and now for a little review…” more than any teacher in the history of teaching. our class wasn’t always so boring though because mr. porter was so nice that the kids totally took advantage of him. it got to be a zoo in that place some days. i remember one time everyone was talking so loudly they were practically yelling, while we were supposed to be looking at things in microscopes, and one kid named drew standing up on top of his lab stool and doing some sort of dance or something… it was like i was in preschool for christ’s sake. but not in that fun build-things-with-blocks way.

last night was good. sitting around, concocting a little audio-potion to return the favor, and just being stupid and listening to some good tunes. i think tonight’s project is to burn a bunch of family guy episodes and skits from the state onto a nice handy cd library from secret sources before they disappear. such wealths of comedy are too good to be true, almost, so must be preserved before some authority swoops in and ruins the fun. that, and the utter excitement and satisfaction of an advertising midterm. do you know what phase of the advertising spiral this ad is a part of? is it pioneering? competitive? retention? oh boy, i sure hope i can figure it out!

speaking of which, i had sort of a conflict today. i’ve been thinking for a while that i’d like to go into advertising. seems like a nice thing to do with a business degree that still allows to be creative and work with creative types, work with other people, have deadlines and projects and all that to keep things interesting. but at the same time, i’m so not the mainstream consumer. i don’t read any magazines regularly. i don’t do sitcoms, or tv dramas, or any other popular programming really. i think adbusters is cool. i don’t think i would want to buy myself any of the things i would be expected to try to make other people buy… so am i just walking into a life of hypocrisy here? that’s a kind of scary thought.

maybe i should stay away from lifelong ethical dilemmas for the moment and concentrate on getting to anthropology class (for once) and finishing this mixtape. these are nice friendly little obstacles we can deal with without calling into question my whole college education. not something i need to be doing with only 2 and a half semesters left til i’m all on my own.

before i get to the good stuff, i just have to share this, because i am cruel.

on the way to class today i was skateboarding along hoover st. in the bike path toward campus, minding my own. riding toward me was a fairly “jolly” young lady on a bike, with a white t-shirt stretched over her large biking body. no big deal, right? i don’t normally take notice of people anyway. but as she rode past me, i saw the funniest thing i saw today: her tshirt had a great big “jelly belly” logo on the front. oh my god, i was glad she was riding the opposite direction and i didn’t have to hold back. if she had been riding alongside me and i saw that i’m positive i couldn’t have held it in and spared her feelings. not to mention being next to her for longer would have made it even funnier. i just had to wonder, did she not realize the walking sight-gag she was going to be when she put that shirt on this morning? or did she do it in some strange act of pride? i can’t see either as being very feasible. i guess she just loves those jelly beans.

oh man, i’m awful.

this week’s song of the week is the issue at hand here though. it was rough this week: do i pick a phantom planet song since they played here yesterday and their cd just came out? do i slap up an old death cab or d-plan favorite, since their big show is this friday night and i’m quivering with anticipation? do i share a tasty trio song since i saw them last weekend and they rocked my saturday night admirably? or do i just stick up the saves the day song with the riff that somehow, months after i thought i decided i didn’t like their new cd, changed my mind? (the song is jukebox breakdown, by the way).

hard to say. but to keep things refreshing, it’s none of those — fooled you! it’s a great track from the new lawrence arms cd that i should have bought at the show saturday, but didn’t. someday, someday… anyway, this song, your gravest words, has really hit the spot for me this week, and you’ll be singing it to yourself too before long.

all the nights this week post-jetpack-speech are looking mighty unobstructed. as in hardly any assignments or random crap to do. i am so down with that, let me tell ya.

for example, last night i finished the kid. what a great book. it got a little less funny and/or observational and a little more sentimental as it neared the end, and sort of lost its edge, but hell, if i was writing a whole book about my adopted newborn and all the shit i went through to get him, i think by the end i would start going soft too just thinking about how lucky i was and all that. brian-endorsed and recommended? yes.

another reason this week is surpassing prior expectations? i got three birthday presents this week.

but wait, you ask, wasn’t your birthday a month ago last sunday? why yes it was, how observant, i would reply. however, i don’t hold it against some folks for not quite getting things here in time. better late than never on the gift issue, without a doubt. plus, the added bonus is that i wasn’t really expecting them, and so all the sudden my mailbox is stuffed with presents and i’m grinning a big dopey one.

so now i have a new cd, a sweet mixtape (plus some yummy frogs), and an unbelievably picked first edition of the kindly ones, which is quite probably the coolest book ever. (i previously owned an inferior-cover-designed second edition). a certain someone sure knows how to tickle my geek-bone, as you can tell, and she defintely won some big points with that one. bravo!

i’ll be back later with a song of the week after i fight an inner battle to decide what it should be. and yes, this inner battle will involve broadswords and those spiked-ball-on-a-chain-attached-to-a-stick things. those are called maces, right? they should definitely have a scarier or more menacing name than ‘mace’. like deathball.

huh?

man, that old counter says times are hard and nobody likes me anymore. maybe because i forgot about the world last night — too busy with a presentation i should have started before 9pm the evening before i had to give it (the next morning at 10). it was a speech about how jetpacks work, so it could have been way worse; but i put in a lot of work, so no time for blogging. it went really well, in case you were wondering. from my speech:

[after discussing heigh/weight ranges to safely ride an XFV personal flying vehicle]

“this means the morbidly obese or freakishly small will not get to experience the sublime joy of flight until demand urges the design of petite and plus sizes of the XFV…”

haha… i’m such a bitch.

but wait, there’s more! phantom planet played a short show at high noon in the middle of our campus to promote their cd release (which was today). so that happened. i don’t know, my thought process while hearing and watching them was along two lines, mostly. the first was that they sure looked like they enjoy being in a band. and that’s important — they were obviously having a great time, or at least convincing me that they were. i suppose it’s possible that they’re just showy.

the second line of thought was that they’re not that great, however, i started thinking about how not every band i ever see or hear can be spectacular . . . it’s just not possible. if every band was amazing, my standards would just keep getting higher and higher until i expected more than any real humans could deliver. perhaps i’d have to turn to heroin to get my kicks, since music wouldn’t really do anything for me anymore. is this a dangerous opinion to take? is allowing for mediocrity only a step away from enjoying dave matthews? well i didn’t mean to get into all that, i just wanted to say this really: phantom planet isn’t that great. it’s true, i think, and i don’t know anyone who thinks they’re too impressive, but i did enjoy seeing them. you could say i liked them, or thought they were good, even though i realize there are so many better things out there.

i feel like by saying these things i’m teetering on the edge of losing all credibility or taste, somehow. well, screw you guys. i’m going to go watch mtv and hope to catch a linkin park video. damn those things are funny. have you seen the one with the floating ninjas, where he sings upside down standing on the ceiling in this weird sewer/cave place? it’s a stellar video, really. the song is “one step closer”, i think. fucking priceless.

sunday afternoon concert review time. i think the biggest feeling i got from the show last night was that i am old. when you’re getting pushed around by 17 year old girls with braces and look like you have a few years on at least 70 percent of the crowd, you start realizing that things are changing before your very eyes. man, and i’m only 21. imagine how strange it’s going to be ten years from now. (shudder).

on to the music though: the first band which i think was called ‘timmy goes boom’ (or something like that) was very good at doing what it seemed like they set out to do — play fast, loud, bad, annoying music. i’d definitely recommend missing them next time they come to your town.

the rest of the show was all uphill. the lawrence arms — who until last night i had only a passing familiarity with other than knowing they were made up of members of the late great slapstick — certainly made a fan out of me with their set. a nice tight 35 minutes of energized rock which was fun to watch and sounded great. i would have seriously answered their inquiry for a place to stay last night too, if i had more space here and less roommates, because they seemed like fun guys.

alkaline trio, who sadly were not headlining, still impressed me this time around. last time i saw them (last summer, maybe?) they didn’t seem that into it, and didn’t play at least a few of the songs i most wanted to hear. last night they managed to hit most of my favorites (although i understand there are too many to hope for all of them to get their turn), and were certainly excited about what they were doing. i sure do love to hear matt skiba scream, let me tell you. and hearing them play (and play well at that — the show sounded great) reminded me why i love them so much: their songs are fucking cool. not like i didn’t remember already — i did pay 20 bucks for the ticket — but hearing him scream out “tongue-tied, bleeding from your eyes, even christ himself would cringe at the sight of your scars…” right in front of you is a fairly moving experience.

last up, bouncing souls. i’ve drifted farther and farther from punk music in its purer forms, but i’m still mighty glad to have seen this band live now. if i were to have a personal punk renaissance, it’d be with the bouncing souls. they just had so much fun up there, and played so fast and loud and still put together a lot of great songs without falling prey to the ‘punk doesn’t have to sound good as long as its fast and/or angry’ beast. if i were more familiar with them i could list some examples (i think ‘kate is great’ was one, could be wrong), but sadly i am not. they pulled about 30 kids onstage to sing the last song with them too, which was another reason i have to give them credit (much to the chagrin of the house of blues staff, who tried to pull tenacious teenagers away from microphones and herd them off through the wings but fought a losing battle until the song ended). overall, a worthy show for sure. and one commemorated by the standard 12 dollar graveyard-picture black t-shirt to help pay for alkaline trio’s alcohol abuse. outstanding.

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…”