Metro/Pleasure Victim

First off, a very merry/happy/befuddled Christamchanakwanzadan to everyone! And a belated Festivus to all the people who don’t believe. Believe in pan-holiday consumerism that is! Wo!

Alright there are thing to accomplish so we shall not dwell on wishing you good stuff, we’ll instead (and for a change of pace) turn our attention towards me and my haul of loot this year. Here is the list:

Scarves (many scarves, in fact 4, all of them pretty awesome. Especially the only one I got in black and lime green!)
A briefer History Of Time and The Universe In A Nutshell by Stephen Hawking
Nat’l Geographic’s Theories Of Everything (A History Of Thought From Newton To String Theory)
Note: The books were either one of two thing: my family’s way of saying “get your science requirements done you lazy fuck!” or a cruel joke as few things scare me more than the universe and the laws by which it functions.
One map of the stars (winter sky)
One shirt (very nice and patterned which I normally don’t like but this one is quite nice)
A ton of music (well music potential in the form of a bunch of gift cards to various places, I’ll start the reviewing process soon)
Two novels Forever by Mark Hamill and White Teeth by Zadie Smith (I haven’t read fiction for a while now, it will be nice to get back to made up things)
CANDY!!!!!!!!!
Money (which is nice as “I got’s to get paid”)
FF VII (the collector’s edition! Only my favorite game ever…you’re the best Nando)
An i mutha fuckin’ Pod! Black, 80 gig…dear lord! Have you seen those commercials where the little kids are spasing out over a present? Yeah that was me when I opened it…for about a day and a half.
And then there is the big screen and the Playstation…so much for a small Christmas, huh?

Alright now on to my night last night. After the gratitude of all my new junk wore off my family started driving me crazy again. In order to keep some semblance of peace I decided to get out of the house and just chill. I went to Best Buy and purchased some new music. I went and ate some spicy tuna rolls at my favorite sushi place. Then I headed over to Starbuck and read for a while, sipping a wonderful cup of “joe.” As the evening progressed I grew more calm and relaxed. It was really exactly what I needed. To cap off the evening I thought I might hop the metro down to the Mall and walk around the hopefully deserted streets for an hour or so until metro closed and I headed home. Well I got to the metro station by my house and things headed into interesting territory from there…

As some of you might know, in order to park in the Metro lots you have to have one of their Smartrip cards. I was (and this is totally me bragging cause I don’t actually live inside of DC) one of the first people to get one. I bought mine about a month after they came out. It has been a real help and of course a status symbol to end all status symbols when it comes to both city “cred” and looking cool as apposed to the damn dirty tourists…Well my card has seen better days and when I went to put money on it to get downtown it wouldn’t read. The attendant said I could buy a new one for ten bucks and that it would be fine. One problem. I only had 20s and the machine only took 10s and under. The attendant didn’t have change and neither did anyone I asked. The guy said that I could just write an IOU at the gate and get out after I freaked out for about 10 minutes quietly in the corner. But when I drove up to the gate no one was there. I went back to the attendant who said that there was always someone there and that he was either in the bathroom or patrolling the lot. So I parked where I could see the booth and waited for the parking lot man to come back. He didn’t. An hour passed and I figured that I would just ask the station manager (who was the person helping me earlier) about it. Well he started to get crazy angry. Not at me but at just about everybody you could imagine. He called the parking lot company, metro itself and then the cell phone of whoever was supposed to be there (which he got from a very scared dispatcher). Well after all of that, there was still no gate going up in my near future. Until he manager just gave up and said that he would start pushing buttons in the little box thing until it went up. In addition he was very sorry and said that everybody else was getting out of there free too that night. I thought it was interesting. Trapped in a Metro parking lot for about an hour and a half. I didn’t get mad at all either, and it was nice to be apologized to by someone who works in the service industry.

Listening to really good mixes…

Red Letter Day

Things to accomplish by Thursday of this week:

Monday-
Work, study for US history by re-reading the last 300 odd pages, go to sleep early as the exam is at 8am and I tend to oversleep at the most inopportune times

Tuesday-
Take US History Exam, get the rest of my Christmas shopping done (cause there won’t be any crowds in the mall this close to Christmas, right? Sigh), coffee with Harry, study for Foreign Affairs by reading all of my Cold War book and making notes on Communist Aggression theory and the policies of containment and détente…goodie

Wednesday-
Work, wrap presents, cook dinner, study for exam

Thursday-
Wake up, go to work to do Secret Santa thingy (I hope I get something decent) then take exam.

Then I’m done at around 3. There is a possibility that I’ll be driving to Virginia Beach (or something like that) to pick up a dog. However I have a feeling that I’ll just end up drinking and watching Christmas movies in my pajamas. Is it sad if that sounds really good right now?

Listening to Les Masquerade by Icollide and Mass. Pike by The Get Up Kids

Reading Squee's Wonderful Big Giant Book of Unspeakable Horror (Now with Meanwhiles) by Jhonen Vasquez

Its Begining To Look A Lot Like Christmas

Yesterday was very strange. I woke up at 5:30 like I always do these days (no it’s cool I do it out of choice for the most part) and set about the normal morning routine. After checking mail and reading blogs I drove in to school for the last day of classes before exam week begins. I’ve been bitching about it for a while so I’ll spare my readers any more of it. Lecture was good however. Both of my professors wrapped up the class rather poetically. One (the cynic of the two) related the twentieth century and indeed all of American history to the raw and unbridled use of power. For good or ill, it was done or the good old U S of A. Oh and he basically told everyone in class that they were there to be babysat and that anyone who wanted a real education should stay the hell away from higher education. I do love that guy…

My second professor ending his lecture with a laundry list of events in the nineties. He starts with Bush the first and worked his way quite quickly through every foreign relations incident in the past 16 years. When you list them all together quickly it seems sort of scary! Then he told us to have a good break and to that he’d see us around next semester…if there was a next semester. Ah, the vague fear that can be derived from the study of history really get you going for the day.

After my classes I went back home to get a big screen TV with my dad. We found a good one and we’re then told that they didn’t have any. Which I think was bullshit but whatever, it is a longer and less interesting story than I am willing to tell. However on the way back we stopped off at the liquor store to stock up for the coming week or two. Our shopping cart contained the following:
Amstel Light (6 cases)
Heineken Light (1 case)
Killian’s Irish Red (1 case)
Fine Pinot Noir (3 bottles)
Fine Merlot (3 bottles)
Pinot-Chardonnay (1 case, yeah it sounds weird but it isn’t that bad for a white and I hate white)
Johnny Walker Blue Label (1 bottle, they now make handles of it! Ridic!)
2 Gallons of Tanqueray Gin (what, we like martini’s they way they were meant to be…without vermouth)

All this for three people
It isn’t that I even have a big family, we just really like to drink.
The best part was when I jokingly said that I should last us until Christmas Day but that we would need more after that. My father’s reply was “Yeah I hope the liquor store is open the day after or we’ll be screwed…” He was upon further investigation not kidding in the slightest.
We are Irish though…

The company Christmas party came next. Has anyone experienced an aggressively dull event? I’ve been through them twice now. Its a party or a concert…really anything, that is so boring that you almost get angry. It’s a truly strange feeling. I would categorize the Christmas thing last night as overtly aggressive in its dullness. Bad food, worse music and all of the people I see for too long during the week acting more annoying cause the shitty open bar won’t cut any of them off. Sorry venting complete.

My weekend starts right after I post this, I cannot wait! St. Mary’s and my favorite crazy Norseman.

Emergency! Emergency!

I do so love a good debate on social history that involves "The counter-culture" and the words "damn dirty hippies."

As Abbie Hoffman put it so well:

"FUCK!"

In all permutations, Abbie, in all permutations.

Back from the wasteland and loving life all the more

I forget somethimes that dogma and knowledge rarely go hand in hand.

Hurray for it being almost Friday and me getting a bunch of stuff done.

Productivity is all the rage...

The Fall

Growing Apprehension. That seems to be the theme of my day. Papers, exams, closing the business quarter in like 6 day (which means all the bills that need to get paid before the end of the year have to be done by the 12th). These things are just about all I can handle at the moment. However that’s not all folk, along with fear and mild dread you’ll also get a cold (or possibly an allergic reaction to being a quitter). But wait there’s more! I know I cant believe it myself, drug side affects will abound as you take a whirl wind vacation, that you cant really afford to being with! Hurray!

It isn’t all bad though, I don’t miss smoking as much as I thought I would. Just the smell. I follow my dad around just waiting for him to walk outside. It’s kind of sad. If I thought I could be trusted I would by a pack just to smell them burning. Also even though I don’t really want one I find myself really having no clue what to do with my hand or with the, on average hour and a half a day I would spend smoking. Cause now work is really dull and I have to excuse to leave for five minutes all the time. I can now totally spend that 30 bucks a week on more productive things like cloths or other useless shit I don’t need, which is nice.

So my Christmas list was thought up in early October. My parents like to shop early and they wanted a detailed list of all the junk that I desired for this holiday season. Well after a few months I want very little of it or have already bought it for myself. That should be good. With a new car to pay off (which is still awesome if any of you were wondering), and a dead iPod all I want for Christmas is some cold hard cash . My iPod is the most crazy important. The guy said it would cost almost as much to fix my ancient model as to get the brand new spiffy one with video and 80 gigs. That’s right 80 gigs. I don’t even have an 80 gig hard drive on my computer, much less that much music While at the Apple store yesterday afternoon (slowly falling in love with the iBook or whatever it’s called) I saw they had some ad saying that you could travel between San Francisco and New York 25 times with it and never hear the same song twice! I wonder if I could fill it…

I also want to buy a PS2 really badly, I found a used one for 109 bucks but as the brand new shiny ones are only 129; I’d just as soon buy one that isn’t possibly messed up. Rock star goodness here I come. You know how I like things that are shiny, or at least have some sort of matte finish.

Wow I feel better just talking about buying stuff. Materialism is like the cure-all of a truly lost generation. I’m not even sure what that means, but it sounds appropriate. I’m on this whole 20’s kick at the moment so “lost” works for me. Whatever, I’m trying to be intellectual about falling into the worst stereotypes of my class and age group.

Such a shit post…but I haven’t done much of anything in a while.

Takin' The A Train

My Thanksgiving Weekend: An Essay
Thursday morning my parents and I set off of the Eastern Shore. The drive down was nice. They even liked the mix I made (with one exception). This is not unusual but I didn’t expect them to enjoy, it wasn’t really to their general taste. My dad now really likes Aimee Mann and my mom loves Echo and the Bunnymen. This amuses me.
When we arrived from what could be described as a relaxing drive into utter chaos. My mother’s family is large and boisterous might be the kindest word. There 25 people in my grandparents rather small house. That was fine. I don’t dislike my family (in small doses). As the evening progressed the libations flowed quite freely (leaving casualties of Bacchus in it’s wake). One of my aunts didn’t quite make it to the table. It took no less than thirty minutes to round everyone to say grace and eat. By then the Turkey was room temperature and the mash potatoes were almost cold. I was not pleased. The up side was the stuffing might have been the best I’ve ever had. It was an early night and we retired to our hotel at around 10.
Friday was not nearly as pleasant. The number of people actually grew by 10. How this happened I could not say but it did. The food was better but my patience with my family wasn’t. We went over for breakfast after a bit of shopping (a sweater and books for me, my dad got the last season of The West Wing on DVD too) and descended on a madhouse from some Dickensian novel; hungry children, adults so hung-over they couldn’t function and the stern eye of the watchman making everyone a bit nervous (my step-grandmother, who I love but is intimidating as hell). I tried to find a quite place to read but there was none. I tried to go outside for some peace and quite and there too was the never ending throng of humanity. Always with questions, a never ending stream of the same three inquiries; “Who are you texting?” (“None of your business”) “So…how’s school going?” (“It’s fine, I like my classes. They are really interesting…[and as I’m about to say more they lose all interest and walk away]”) “Why do you have that pained look on your face all the time Greg?” (“Because unlike everyone else in this family I can’t justify drinking hard liquor at 10am…straight”). It went down from there. My Grandfather saved me though. He talked to me about history, philosophy, wine (the enjoyment of not the chugging), what books I’m reading and what I’m going with my life (more than just “I’m fine”). We spent most of the night drinking scotch (Johnnie Walker Blue Label) and talking about Beat poetry and German philosophy. The title of the post is a refernce to his link between Duke Ellington and Ginsberg that I was baffled by. I loved it. He and I are about the same. That redeemed all the annoying stuff that really shouldn’t have matter. So here is your Thanksgiving lesson gentle reader; holidays are for family and eating too much and being crazy, but don’t get caught up in the Yule-tide bullshit. It isn’t worth it…

It is a heap of work and school until my last exam on the 19th (I think that is the date; my teacher keeps moving it). Papers and obligation abound but all I can think about is the bed waiting for me in Southern Maryland this weekend. It isn’t Monday yet and Friday can’t come soon enough. Time to work on my paper about a dreamer, a cad, a deeply insecure boy trapped in circumstances and responsibilities beyond him (or anyone), and a man who wanted so badly to do right all he did was wrong. Wilson makes my heart sick. If I can fuck up as beautifully as him I could call my life complete and well lived. The road to hell is truly paved with the good intentions of misguided idealism. What a way to go though.

Hooray! St. Mary’s was wonderful. Wine, woman and song. The first and last are always in abundance but the second was truly delightful. The Wine was a Kendal Jackson Cabernet and the song where primarily the new Game which is maybe the best rap album of the year. Doctor’s Advocate (the title track) is in my humble opinion the best slow rap song to be released since whenever Bone Thugz were last good. Anyway enough about all that. Home and busy now. My bed seems so much colder than before. I haven’t felt this way in a long time. Ever maybe…
It’s a short if hectic week. Test today, which I should have studied for a little more, it’s on WWII though; I’m not too worried. Then work where I’ve become the executive hand-holder. The job would be slightly better if the hand-holing were not as critical to getting everything done. I does feel nice to be wanted though. Thursday I’m off (of course) and going down to bowl and see family and drink Blue and a bottle of wine that my Grandfather has been talking non stop about for ages. Something esoteric and French which has me almost as excited as the Blue. I wasn’t looking forward much to this whole ordeal but it will be nice I think. Just not the same.

Listening to Christie Front Drive Self Titled (how is Dirt that good of a song?)

Please Drive Faster

It’s been a crazy slow day at work today so went to Google Maps and worked up my ultimate road trip. Here goes:

95 Down to Raleigh from there old Route 66 starts (its now called Interstate 40…WTF). From there it’s a clear shot to the sunny Pacific. At around Palm Springs I’d have to take 10 to L.A. and swing by Riverside to see Shah. Then it’s a combination of Route 1 and 101 all the way to Seattle. You my know it was the Costal Highway. From Seattle (after the obligatory cup of coffee) its across the Northern States on 90 to Boston (swinging by Fenway and Southie) and back down 95 to D.C with a quick stop off in New York to see my cousin and got to the MET. There would have to be a stop over in Austin to see friends and I have some family in St. Louis. Otherwise the only thing I want to see the road and hole in the wall dinners. No point of destination. No point. Only the journey. Seeing all the little cities and towns that ring a bell and conjure something within our social consciousness. There is no other country like the US and I have seen only a fraction. This pulling west was what had drawn us forward. “We looked over the hill and saw fire. We crossed the Atlantic and flew. Human history is based around a timeline of exploration.” This is deep in my blood. I want so desperately to do this right now, just pack up and leave , not tell anyone and drive for a month…maybe next summer or the one after.

“Every man should see the desert before he dies…”

Only Shallow

I had a damn good weekend. I seem to start off every post on Mondays with some sort of construction like that, but it is true none the less. Short version: Off work early, Fredrick, 495 sans traffic at 5 (I know, crazy), St. Mary’s, good weather, Guitar Hero II for most of Saturday, other good things too, drive back kind of shitty.

I have my new car!

My job seems to actually be safe, not just the tentative conclusion I drew last time. The real test will be after my Mom leaves though.

New Game album comes out Tomorrow. Should be great.

The entire Orchid discography is now in my possession, now for Braid.

It is raining and it is Monday. I love days like this, no joke either.

Short but sweet, I shall endeavor to post something else this week with slightly more meat.
At the moment I am listening to Loveless by My Bloody Valentine.

Loft Party / Opus 62

So I’ve come to a few interesting conclusions today:

1.) My quest to eliminate subjectivity is ridiculous and thinking that I’ve made head-way is almost sinister in it’s absurdity

2.) I wavered in my trust of music until I heard Chopin’s 15th Prelude followed by his Nocturne in C Sharp Minor…Jesus, that will make you believe in the divine again.

3.) Commercialism and radicalism in the culture wars are not the only sides to choose from. That makes me very happy; you never hear about option three though.

4.) Orchid is smarter than I thought. This also makes me quite happy. I’m still trying to figure out if they are smarter than even that, if only I could figure out arrangements…

5.) People younger than 90 don’t vote at 7 in the morning…I should have assumed as much

6.) Harry Truman was funnier than I thought he could be.

7.) Until about two days ago my pretension was a crutch; now its more like a decorative walking stick.

8.) The title of the blog is once again true…this time it isn’t due to outside forces. I was sick of all the sunsets.

That was more than a few but whatever…Thank you Teddy! I didn’t realize a German from the 50’s could teach me anything about aesthetics. Boy was I wrong.

Listening to Schoenberg for the hundredth time. It seems like the first though…

Seven Seperate Kids, Seven Separate Fires

I watched a bunch of movies this weekend. Some good, some not so good. I figured since there was no wild debauchery this weekend I would fill everyone in on my meaningless opinions on the matter.

The Omen: I actually wanted to see this! I know, what the hell is wrong with me? I hate horror movies. Well I figured anything with Julia Styles wouldn’t be that terrifying (if only because I could imagine her in Save The Last Dance). It was suitably creepy. The little kid was perfect and there were a few good scare the bejesus out of you moments, but if I could handle it you know it wasn’t that great…(3/5 stars)

Land Of The Dead: your all shocked now I know it…2 horror movies in one weekend. I love the zombies though. Romero’s commentary on communism or collectivism or how people just plain old suck was truly the corniest thing I’ve seen in a long time! The metaphor was extended beyond all imagining. They even made the Zombie Leader (yes they can think now…) look like Lenin. Fun but not for the light of heart, you really have to love a bad Zombie flick to sit through the whole thing. (2/5 stars…for the normal people; I’d give it a 3/5)

Memento: Its old and everybody’s already seen it for the most part but I hadn’t and it was incredible. The director (same guy who did The Prestige and Batman Begins) is one of the most talented storytellers of our age! That is in no way an overstatement either, the movie is one of the most bizarre things I have seen and somehow he pulls it off. If anyone hasn’t seen it yet I won’t spoil anything but seriously: rent it. (4.8/5 Stars one of the best movies in its genre)

Art School Confidential: Not the movie I was expecting but funny one the less. It is a murder mystery and while the characters are a bit hacky it was fun and since I know most of those people in some form or another (or am, myself, one) I enjoyed it. John Malekevich is totally the best part of it, I think that might be every art teacher that ever put brush to canvas…(3/5 Stars)

Friends With Money: Skip it…the pacing is terrible and the characters are just too clichéd to be believed. I didn’t even watch the end of it. This is partly because I fell asleep and partly because I didn’t want to watch anymore. The fact that I fell asleep should be a strong indicator of my opinion to begin with. (1/5 Stars)

Going down to St. Mary’s again this weekend with Mike. Tests to study for and work to do. It seems like I’ll be keeping my job for the time being…busy but not boring. Studio 60 is on tonight! YAY!

Amherst Pandemonium (Part 2)

First off Happy Halloween!

As I said I would in the last post I got the Imogen Heap album (Speak For Yourself) and I picked up Agustana’s debut (All The Stars And Boulevards). Both are quite good. I wasn’t expecting much from the Augustana but I’ve given it a cursory listen and it manages to exceed my expectations at least. I’ve had their EP for a while now and the LP is pretty solid considering the best songs are on the mini. Ms. Heap can’t disappoint, of that, I am now certain.

Today at school I was mistaken for a teacher. That made me ruinously happy. And in my world affairs class my teacher called me an “Irish son.” It also provoked a smile.

I didn’t even realize but I’ve been living “The Spirit Of Autumn” way better than I could have hoped. The jury is still out on whether that is a good thing or not.

After coming to grips with a few rather harsh realities I have decided to “regroup and strategize.” Good god Orchid is a great band!

Cover Me

A lovely little weekend all things considered. Friday Mike managed to get off early and we beat all the traffic down to SMC. It was a quite evening, but good to see everyone. Saturday we were watching the clock for 7 to roll around and got ready for the main event; Hallowed Greens. I went as “Irish,” which involved a green suit and a truly inspired shillelagh (which I had to win in a contest of drinking), along with a great fedora. The greatest part of the night costume-wise was a two story tall Trojan Horse! Mike and I ended up at Liz and Joanna’s place and hung out for a while watching terrible TV and talking until around 5 in the morning. Sunday Liz and I went out to lunch at IHOP which was surreal in a good way (IHOP has always struck me as surreal though). I dropped Mike off up in Fredrick (listening to the Imogen Heap album which is fucking amazing, its my new driving at night CD, just as soon as I go out and buy my own copy) and made it home at around 8:30 and promptly went to bed (after watching the last 20 minutes or so of Sleepy Hollow, I forgot that Christopher Walken is the Hessian in that)

I’ve been thinking a lot about covers recently…I have come to the conclusion that they are great, only rarely, and made great by two factors, neither mutually exclusive. The first is if the cover is better than the original. This doesn’t happen too often but when it does it is amazing (take A Light that Never Goes Out by Braid, originally the Smiths). The Second factor is if the Cover is hilarious, this is also not all that common but awesome (e.g. Take On Me by Cap’n Jazz, originally A-Ha). Most fall into a category other than greatness. These can be good too but usually for personal reasons. I love My Generation by Chapeau Melon and 99 Red Balloons by Goldfinger only because they came around at just the right moment and will always remind me of people and things from that summer, they are however not very good covers (the Goldfinger one is decent but not great). Anyway…

A few side notes:

+My Dad had a car intensive weekend; he went to this sport rally think for BMWs and got to drive my dream car (a BMW Z4 sport coupe) and a few others. In addition one of his friends is getting an ’84 Dauphin Gray 5.30 M Sedan which I lust after as well (I drive an ’84 Gray 5.28e, it little sister of this car)
+ My mom got a great job offer and is leaving WRIT. This is both good and bad. It will mean more money for her and the family in general but it will also mean no more job for me…eh, not too worried.
+ Studio 60 has not been canceled yet! NBC ordered three more scripts (a total count of 16) and it will resume next week. YAY! It hasn’t been picked up officially but I think it will after this news.
+ This weekend will hopefully be Mike and I drinking scotch and watching a lot of Sorkin, I have to stay around this weekend as the parentals are going off to Williamsburg this weekend and the “Muppet” will need watching.

Listening to Chaos Ain’t Me and Loft Party by Orchid (freaking amazing album over all too, power chords and pretension go together like bees and honey!)

It's Okay (One Blood)

How the hell did it get to be Friday already? Anyway, had a busy week. School was tests and crazy lectures (literally; I’m almost completely convinced both of my teachers are certifiably insane). I picked up a copy of the new Dresden Dolls CD on Tuesday. I didn’t really think much of it the first time through but after a couple more listens it isn’t too bad. There are actually a number of songs that I’ll actually be excited to hear at the concert. Should be fun, if slightly odd to see a band that I’m not in love with. I don’t generally suffer the rigors of a club to see just anybody, but hey the ticket was free (9:30 Club on 10/27 if anyone is interested)

I also picked up the Smiths “Singles.” Of course amazing, and I fanally have a copy of A Light That Never Goes Out. This weekend will be quite but I am hoping to see Marie Antoinette sometime soon. How I love thee Miss Copula…and the fact that your using post punk for a film about an absolutist monarchy in the 18th Century. The metaphor of it bowls me over.

Casey was totally right by the by: “Sometimes you just stand there with cake on your face…” Having obligations is lame.

The post title is what I’m listening to by The Game

99 Problems...

It was a rather complex weekend. I headed down to St. Mary’s with Mike on Friday and stayed until Sunday. The drive down was a bit long with traffic but Sunday few by drive-wise. All in all it was a good if somewhat infuriating time.

This week will be busy. Work is getting a little slower which is nice but of course school is picking up. Test on Tuesday and I’ll hopefully get the other one I took back. Beyond that the weekend looks chill for the most part. Thursday Mike and Aaron might be coming down to help with the Tower plundering, as they are going out of business and there are some good sales. Saturday and Sunday I’m house sitting again, always good for that economic injection of liquid capital.

I finished the first season of Nip/Tuck last night. I’d have to say that it would be hard to beat the craziness of the entire season but having watched a bit this season and a few from the intervening, it does. It’s a car crash and I can’t look away

I’m taking Ricardo’s advice so listening to The Night Has Opened Up My Eyes and What Difference Does It Make by The Smiths

It's The End Of The World As We Know It

I meant to post this a while ago, but here it is. I might be a bit behind on any current devlopements…

Well the media has officially scared the crap out of me. North Korea detonated a very low yield nuclear device (low yield being the equivalent of 500 tons of dynamite…). This spurred Iran into declaring that I would also begin the development of a nuclear bomb (which everyone assumes they have been doing since Khomeini took over). That adds two more countries to the “Nuclear Club.” Among the other nations are Pakistan (with a fractious government and little in the way of “command and control” of their few warheads), India (who hates Pakistan and vice versa), Russia (which was scary back in the Cold War and is now horrifying because their facilities are completely unsafe and poorly guarded). Britain and France also have the boom as well as China . Israel is widely believed to have one but never tested it.

So in short The Muslim/Jewish/Hindu portion of the globe is only a few wrong moves away from glowing in the dark (but they have been for a while). The addition of Iran into the mix makes for a nightmarish situation where pretty much all of the “ Fertile Crescent ” becomes no more than a wasteland of irradiated glass (what happens to sand after a detonation). India will of course use some sort of pretext and do a “first strike on Pakistan and Pakistan will I’m sure return in kind. This will blow large chunks out of the Hindu Kush mountain range; of that there can be no doubt. And after the Shihab-3 was tested in Iran and actually did work most of its neighbors would be in the firing range of a second Islamic bomb.

Korea could easily nuke its neighbor to the south or Japan or if their ICBMs work as well as they say; San Francisco or Los Angles. There really wouldn’t even need to be much of a provocation, seeing as Kim Jung Il is completely insane!
Alright now I realize that this is all the worst possible case scenario and that the likelihood of all of these much less one is remote, but the very possibility of it is a little on the “Greg-hasn’t-been-able-to-sleep-much” side.

All in all though I’m not as worried about that as I am other things so…we’ll move it along. Studio 60 has fallen in the rating again with the early returns showing another ½ million lose and a bit more slipping in the key demos. I’m actually pretty confident, from everything that NBC has released they have done a great job in spinning the numbers and it would appear as if the show will go to at least the 13 episode mark, most likely a whole season. Yay! I’m headed down to St. Mary’s this weekend and hopefully will delight in the debauchery that always abounds. It will be a nice getaway after last weekend and the crazy school work thing. Good new on the paper: 94%...

Listening to: Eli by Ordination of Aaron

All Lost In The Supermarket

Well I had an alternately productive and dull as fuck weekend. Got a big paper out of the way which was nice but all my tests that were supossed to be on Thursday got pushed back, which is nice but I would have rather them done with and out of the way. I house sat this weekend again which was movie-filled. I watched Sid and Nancy again, which is such a great movie( I mean Gary Oldman is so perfect), and Closer which is maybe top 5 ever on the list. Last night was a bunch of Nip/Tuck on DVD that a friend lent me. That show is disturbing, graphic and has really messed up characters. I love it.

So after my Sid and Nancy nostalgia that evening I learned that CBGB is closing this coming Saturday. This week they have some of the great surviving members of the scene pay homage to the dirty little club. Pattie Smith, Debbie Harry and Bad Brains are all playing the club’s last weekend. I considered indenturing myself to both Chevy Chase Bank and my parents to get up there and see the end of it all, but everything is sold out. Apparently I missed it by a day…I can still remember reading "England Dreaming" and thinking that, even if punk was dead and had been since before I was born, all I wanted to do was stand in that cramped and smelly little place and go nuts listening to Johnny and Sid or Joey and Dee Dee, especially Joe…Those days were gone then and now there isn’t anything to remember them by. So that kind of bummed me out. I’ve had my CBGB shirt since before you could get them just anywhere (cousin in New York), my birthday the day I turned 14…

On to happier, less lame things. Studio 60 sounds good tonight so that will be fun. I’m hoping to get away this weekend, wherever that ends up being. Fredrick or St. Mary’s or Baltimore, I don’t really care.

Listening to Never Mind The Bollocks (album) by the Sex Pistols, The Ramones (Album) by The Ramones and London Calling (Album) by The Clash
I know “how could I be listening to three whole albums?” When I found out this morning at around 7 I started playing them, I honestly don’t really like them as much as I used to but they hold a lot of sentimental value…

One Warrior

A few great pieces of information to pass on:
1.) Deadsy will be playing December 4 at The 9:30 Club according to their website. That one is going to be amazing

2.) Lesotho has adopted a new flag! Apparently it involves tribal headgear. It’s not great new, but I thought that everyone should know.

3.) The new and wildly popular NBC show Heroes has a character named Mohinder Suresh. Mohinder is the son of an Indian scientist trying to discover new evolutionary developments. Mohinder is also the name of an amazing band. Mike I thought that this might make you smile, and yes they are spelled the same.

[update] 4.) 24 is set for January 14th. JACK IS BACK

Okay…now for the bad news.

Studio 60 has steadily been losing the huge audience that it acquired during the pilot. The first two weeks where good, with strong numbers in the key demos but this Monday was rough. The total household count was 6.1 and the 18-45 fell 16%. Now it is early but that isn’t a good sign. They weren’t even beaten out by baseball, it was fucking CSI Miami! If David Coruso end up being the downfall of this great show…I’m not even sure what I’d do. Aaron and the gang aren’t the only ones in trouble; after a great start for the network who has been floundering since Friends went off the air and Seinfeld left for good, CBS beat them out across the board. I think it was the early start and the hype that had inflated the numbers. The show within a show managed to keep a 90% retention rate after the hype of the fictional Danny and Albe coming back and the controversial nature of their first show. Its funny sometimes how close to life Sorkin is with his stuff. The ridiculously self-referential nature of that whole episode is great, unfortunately for the Studio 60 cast and crew in real life there really is “only one way to go from there.” Hopefully NBC will be bright enough to leave the show enough time to grow, there might be a bigger ad buy if it gets an award or two under its belt after the end of the season…I still have hope. That and what else is NBC going to put in there that can even being to stand up to both CSI and baseball? Next week is equally grim with the somewhat anticipated “What About Brian” premiering on ABC, fingers crossed.

Stay Gold, Ponyboy

Good Weekend. Friday was a good one. Mike Dave and I spent an inordinate amount of time at the Mirage up in Fredrick, smoking a little hookah and drinking a fairly quaffable Australian Shiraz. Tasting notes for those interested: Dry with an even finish, hints of oak and toffee. Anyway the night was supposed to go one way and ended up another but still a bunch of fun. Re-watching the first two episodes of Studio 60 then selections form Sports night (one of the greatest lines… “I’m his boy” “You’re his boy?” “Yeah…but its okay”) Saturday was a ton of reading. At the moment its Charlie Wilson’s War. The story of US involvement in Afghanistan during the war with the Soviets. The book is ostensibly a history of said war but it reads like a Clancy novel, dashing protagonists, spies and intrigue, think James Bond if he was a Congressman. Its worth checking out. That evening was a late night session with Nando. As always funny, amazing and more than a little disturbing (to read some of the crazy shit that comes out of his mouth look up his blog at www.swordninjas.blogspot.com, worth reading from the beginning, don’t take what he says seriously either…I know he never does) We watched Monty Python Live which was great then round about 6am I headed home to grab a few hours of sleep before wasting my entire day on the net. All in all: fun.
This coming week is going to be busy. My first round of exams should be Thursday and there is lots of new and tedious things to learn at work…the weekend looks like house-sitting and maybe a party somewhere.
Well I feel as if I’ve accomplished what I set out to do in this post. There were two main objectives for those of you curious; the first was to be an asshole about wine (check) and the second was to bump Nando’s reader pool a bit, considering that he thinks that I’m the only one that reads it. Hahaha, now he will in all likelihood offend most if not all of the people I know that are willing to click on that link (check and double check).

Listening to Dirt by Christie Front Drive (god what a great song)

"...not unless you want to lighten up a bit more?"

“It's not going to be a very good show tonight. I think you should change the channel, change the channel right now or better yet turn off the TV. Now, I know it seems like this is supposed to be funny, but, uh, tomorrow you're gonna find out that it wasn't and by that time I'll have been fired. No, this is not a sketch. This show used to be cutting edge political and social satire, but it's gotten lobotomized by a candy ass broadcast network. Hellbent on doing nothing that might challenge their audience. We're about to do a sketch that everyone's seen like 500 times. No, no one's gonna confuse George Bush and George Plimpton, yeah we get it. We're all being lobotomized by this countries most influential industry. It just throws in the towel on any endeavor to do anything that doesn't involve the courting of 12 year old boys. Not even the smart 12 year olds, the stupid ones, the idiots of which there are plenty thanks to no small mention of this network. So why don't you just change the channel? Turn off the TV do it right now. The struggle between art and commerce. Well, there's always been a struggle between art and commerce and now I'm telling you art is getting it's ass kicked and it's making us mean and it's making us bitchy. It's making us cheap punks and that's not who we are! People are having contests to see how much they can be like Donald Trump. We're eating worms for money. "Who wants to screw my sister." Guys are getting killed in a war that has theme music and a logo. That remote in your hands is a crack pipe, oh yeah sure every once in a while we pretend to be appalled. We're becoming Pornographers! It's not even good pornography. It's just a side of snuff films and friends that's what's next because that's all there is left. And the two things that make them scared gutless of the FCC is and every psycho religious cult that gets positively horny at the mention of a boycott.”
Studio 60

Yeah…I know fricken’ awesome right? That’s really all I wanted to let you know about today. I guess one other thing…WATCH THIS SHOW!!!!

Oh Messy Life

Alright so I had a nice quite weekend. Friday after work I had a big family dinner, which was nice. I got do see Bella a little more…actually a lot more, I’m the de facto babysitter at these sort of gatherings. The upside is that I get to do coloring books. I fucking love coloring books! Saturday was great, I had this super intense conversation with Harry, that was amazing and fun and very confusing all at the same time. I went to go have coffee with Sara after that which was also nice. Catching up is always good. That night I talked with my granddad about history until quite late, sort of a continuation of a similar discussion Friday. He is ridiculously smart, which I never realized, and he knows politics way to well. I was interesting to connect with someone from my family again, I hadn’t done that in a while. Sunday was a crap-load of reading that was both interesting and infuriating. So as to give us both sides of historical writing, my US and World Affairs teacher assigned us this book, American Victories (Why America wins wars). I wont go into the details but think Ann Coulter on crack and you have his essential political viewpoint. I hate both extremes, but this was some of the most inflammatory stuff I’ve read in a long time. I guess the most depressing part of the whole thing is that he has a bit of a mind, and uses it only to deride the far left, giving no moderate viewpoint from either aisle. I finished it and after tomorrow I wont have to think about it again hopefully!

Beyond that I’m hoping like hell that there will be a new cell phone in the near future, Wednesday if everything goes to plan. Right now I really want the “V,” it is basically Verizon’s answer to the sidekick. I wont be getting many of the special features right away, but there is always the upgrade! I also think I’ll be able to keep my same number. If not I’ll give you a call.

That and school work are about the only thing on my plate at the moment, so I’ll be really bored and junk. This will I’m sure lead to lots of posts this week, whatever…Hey this is also the big 5-0. Fifty posts and seven and a half months have brought all two or three of you to this spot! Wow…maybe I should have made this one more important…

Listening to Alone In Kyoto by Air and Cruella by Deadsy

Young Machines

Alright so, quite morning so far. Everybody is in the big Friday meeting. So I have time to waste. Cool. Well. I really don’t have much of substance to say other than I completely agree with Shah about the whole Darfur thing. That is an awful situation that should be leading or at least front page on every newspaper in the country. We are afraid to intervene because of Somalia but I think after Baghdad, urban warfare is something that our troops have down pretty good. There are issues of sovereignty as always but fuck that when the Mujhadeen (sp.?) are mowing down women and children. I think we should go get there backs…with tanks (to paraphrase President Bartlet).
On a less depressing note I have figured out my myspace/blogspot dilemma. I’m going to keep posting here as I always have but there will be a little dumb content on the myspace page. Surveys, quizzes, whatever I feel like. I mean essentially this is for Shah to keep up on my life and for Mike to occasionally (when internet is available to him) call me on some musical reference I made or something. I like that and don’t want it to change, however being a budding myspace junkie, I feel as if I should do more with my page or something.
That’s all for now. Time to be productive. In, I’ll grant you, a rather Friday-half-assed kind of way!

Elevate Me Later

Sorry about yesterday. I was just in a bad mood. Mike’s, or Tzara’s…I’m not sure which, that “life should be seen as widely dehumanizing” was bugging me along with this ongoing internal monologue about deconstructionism and devolution versus progress and whatever “comes next”. Speaking of Art and Philosophy and all that crap that I get distracted by too much lately, the DAMO page has been updated a bit, just some little things, you can find it through my blog profile. Anyway, yeah sorry. I’m honestly not even sure anyone reads this anymore but I said in my first post that I would not do that. Oh well…

Today was good. I played devils advocate to a bunch for people screaming “free trade” in my World Affairs class. Protectionism is fun to defend because the immediacy of its benefits are easy. “Free trade stops wars!” though (as Toby said so eloquently). Babbling about Detroit and US Steel was fun though. That and everyone seems to know that Free Trade is good but none of them came close to actually articulating it.
So for real for real, my phone is totally screwed up and I’m not sure if or when I’m getting a new one. If someone wants or needs (though I doubt need will arise) to get a hold of me leave me a comment on this or the myspace. Hopefully I will get a brand new shiny phone soon with even more features that I’ll either never use or annoy people with constantly! I’m gunning for a blackberry but that might be out of the question. Mr. Jenkins does make a powerful argument in the affirmative, but my means may not consent, or my parents. Most likely both.

I can’t say enough how great last weekend was. Truly a much needed get away from the general drudgery. I had fun with just about everyone I hung with that night. And there were a lot of people. Being a social butterfly is so vainly satisfying that its scary.
This weekend will bring less excitement (as you may have gathered from the previous post), but the booze will flow thickly and smell like Guinness (I’m Irish…who’d you think I was?). One of the best parts of Autumn? Its Guinness season at the house!
I have nothing on the radar for the following weekend (way to early to tell yet I know) but I’m hoping to get down to SMCM again or possibly blow a lot of money at thrift stores. Those are the two big options at the moment. They, I am sure will change before too long…

The Boy With The Thorn In His Side

So I’m really bored and there is nothing good on TV…by the way I think that TV Geek is going to be dead for a while. All I really have time for this week is work, I work at school I work at work and I do both of those works at home, so sleeping and junk is about all I have time for.

Except tonight. Yeah of course when there is nothing good on. So I’m becoming a total myspace freak just like everybody else. The thing is a huge time suck…I have to check it at least once a day now…I’m almost thinking that I should move the blog…but I wont. Blogspot has its charms…

I don’t really feel like doing anything besides nothing

Coming down of a literary high sucks

Coming down off any high sucks

I’m still sort of amped from the weekend even but that’s diminishing. Anyway.

Nothing to do this weekend. I apparently didn’t do enough of the family thing this weekend so I’m in relations purgatory for a while. Grandparents on Friday Cousins on Saturday and then a shit load of reading that I should really be doing now on Sunday…

Missing people like crazy…wanting to see everyone I know (and like) at once would lead to some sort of nuclear explosion of resentment and dislike, that or the time-space continuum would tear and existence would shift…ah the multiverse (thank you Kant)

Oh and my phone is really fucked up so if you want to call, I dunno...wait until November when I get a new one...

This is lame, I’m going to go look for people I knew in Kindergarten some more

Listening to Sonny by Morrissey and Do You Like Coffee by Braid

Buddha For Mary

So in between class yesterday I picked up a copy of the Complete Works of Allen Ginsberg. I was bored and had already caught up on all of my reading of class. I flipped to the page where “Howl” began and read, and read, and read. In the end I had gone over it six times and was almost late for class. First off for anyone how hasn’t read it before read it. Its been one of my favorite poems for a long time (since mid high school I think). How can something so deeply personal and specific be so universal and understood and empathized with. Reading it however always gets me down a bit. For two reasons; my generation acts basically the same way but without the excuse and I’ll never write anything even close to approximating a plagiarism of Ginsberg. Oh well, we cant all define a generation in a single work.

Beyond the moppy-ness work is busy as always with corporate politics conspiring to ruin my Ginsberg/Zen-like high from yesterday. People are just so damn petty and nearsighted. They wrap themselves in these artificial worlds in which they love to bray at the moon, or may as well, for all the good it will do complaining about these things. I’m no Ghandi “be the change you wan to see in the world” boy but for god sakes there is a difference between being able to do something about a problem and then fixing it and not being able to do jack shit about a problem. Those you have to except and deal with. THEY DON’T GO AWAY, AND THEY WILL MAKE YOUR LIFE HARDER! This is life. Life is pain and suffering and joy and hope and beauty and shame and every experience under the sun. You have to take both with a grain of salt, ‘cause both are impermanent and both in the end mean little when they are weighed against your actions. And before Mike or someone gets the smart-alecky idea of calling me a Buddhist, I think that life is equal parts joy and sorrow. And not all pain.

Fuck it. That was dumb. And there goes the bliss, back to staring at my computer trying to avoid the internal, unnecessary bull…

Listening to Braid…lots of it and loudly!

She Likes Big Words

Great weekend. I went to pick up Mike and Matt and we got down to St. Mary’s at 8ish. Sort of just chilled for a bit and played some games. One of which, Guitar Hero, is insanely addictive and amazing. I was up until six in the morning playing it while everyone else was sleeping. I’m not very good but I can now play Bad Religion’s Infected pretty well. Anyway, we got up early to head back to the DC area. Dropped off Matt at Shady Grove Metro and headed home. Mike chilled at my house while I did the family thing (which was nice, if fairly stereotypically Italian). Then we headed back down to St. Mary’s. I know, crazy right? Probably but it seemed like a good idea at the time. I meet up with my old roommate Carrey and we sort of wandered around for a while. I ended up seeing a bunch of people that I hadn’t in a long time. It was actually quite fun. I got back to their house at around six and over slept a bit for the next day. Mike woke me up at noon and, and we hit the road to Nissan. Baron was waiting for us there and we proceeded into a world of “jerbandness.” I didn’t know that Hot Topic had that much clothing to sell. Anyway Deadsy was on early so we just caught them. They were great! They played their cover of Tom Sawyer (originally by Rush) that was great and The Winners (one of my favorite songs off the first album). They announced after the set that they would be signing stuff, so we went, figuring that since we were all broke we would get our tickets signed. They had posters and stickers ready and waiting! So that was cool. Mike and I both splurged a bit and got these wristband and button sets that are sweet. They play again with the Deftones sometime next month, so that should be good. I went and dropped Mike in Fredrick (actually he did the lion’s share of the driving Sunday) and dropped myself the minute I got home.

This week should be chill, a paper due at the end of the week and a lot of reading for school, work is moving along well to, even though I definitely don’t get paid enough for what I’m doing (or so I’ve been told by a couple people).

Listening to Put You On The Game by The Game and some 213…’cause I too have a G-ed up swagger.

Sleeping Off Summer

FRIDAY YEAH!! I had a good week at school. My teachers are both quite funny. One totally called out this guy who had his cell phone on. He actually ordered him out of the class. It was grand. It was a really annoying ring too, something rap that I didn’t know. Work has been pretty crazy, the company has expanded three times over since I started this blog. That’s not normal, or hopefully sustainable growth.

St. Mary’s is just a few hours away, but the drive will be interesting. First up to Fredrick to get Mike then a quick stop off at Shady Grove to pick up The Historian and hen the long trek down route 5 to bliss and booze. Only Friday unfortunately. I’ve got y baby cousin’s fourth birthday on Saturday and I must make an appearance. Then I think it will be on to Baltimore with Mike to see the crew up there. Mr. Jekins is performing at Townsend and we may indulge in what I can only imagine is some thoroughly “wild” hardcore. Sunday is Deadsy which I am mad excited for. The costumes I wanted to get didn’t pan out but that may be for the best. Hopefully I’ll be able to give the new CD some consideration on the long drives ahead.

Nothing else really right now, I’m just kind of bored at work while the departments all meet. Summer is coming to an end and the beginning of Fall is right around the corner. I went out to smoke a cigarette last night at around midnight and I could see my breath, and no, it wasn’t just the smoke. I like the fall its my favorite season but there is this part of you ingrained since kindergarten that always gets a little bummed. Upside of upsides however…its pay day. Maybe two of the best words in any language when used in conjunction. So I’m not too bummed. LOOK HOW GREG IS LIVIN’

Sorry I haven’t used that line in a while…

Listening to Reflections of Milkweed by Indian Summer and Love Fool (that’s right…Love Fool) by The Cardigans.

Quarkscrews

Well what a weekend. Friday was a blast I went up to Fredrick thinking that I’d hand out with Baron and Mike and partake in a little of the new season’s theme. It ended up with way more people which is always fun. We went over to the Coffee Shop and played the most intense game of Jenga ever! We actually couldn’t make it any taller. There were even spectators, and the competition element disappeared quickly as the tower got bigger. More of a team effort than a “who is going to lose” thing. Well after that we went walking around bumping into Mr. Jekin’s friends at parks. And ambled along the Fredrick Canal, a sort of artificial river that will hopefully bring in the crowds once it is all done.

A bit about the theme I have been alluding to. I’m sort of new to this, but every year the group comes up with a theme for the season. This basically dictates behavior, fashion and music. Of course its not strictly enforced or anything but it’s kind of fun to play around with. This Season is titled “The Spirit Of Autumn.” The essence is mid-nineties “emo,” so it will be a lot of short sleeve collar shirts and cuffed jeans along with ancient band shirts and bulky shoes or chucks. The Music will be everything from Braid (my personal favorite of the season) to Nation of Ulysses. And of course there will be a lot of reminiscing about the past and being in love with girls that you will never even talk to. So really not a lot will change for me. I am rather proud of myself for putting forth the leading idea for next season. It will be a two part-er “White Noise Winter” punctuated by “A Two-Tone Christmas.” I just like the though of ska and Jesus together at last.

One last thing. As I was logging on to blogspot there is this rolling list of what has been updated. It’s a cool little feature, but as I got to the site the most recently updated blog as entitled “Potatobabies.” I thought some of you might like to know. Unfortunately the site is about dolls that this woman makes out of her house, and nothing to do with me and my people.

Listening to Sleeping Off The Summer by Boy’s Life and Don’t Hate Me by The Get Up Kids

Urbana's Too Dark

Alright this one is gonna be quick…

Good day at work and I could actually concentrate (thank you uppers). Finished part one of ten of my huge filing project but it felt good. Accomplishment rules a bit.

I can’t decide if Velcro is sexy or not. I am airing on the side of not sexy at the moment. Thoughts and discussion are welcome

In honor of “The Spirit of Autumn” theme for the upcoming season (more on that later) I did a little preview at work music wise. In other words I listened to Braid all day long. Such a great band. Nana is insanely talented. Anyway I was listening to A Dozen Roses and I came to the (all be it hasty conclusion) that the build up and catharsis to it (the part were he says “Static made on radio over and over again [2:20-3:12])is one of the greatest rock moments of the late 90s.

As I was looking up when exactly “Frame And Canvas” came out I saw that Vitamin C has a new album out. She and Shinoda should do a duet. Sorry Mike I cant hate him as much as you. He is involved in the only rap song in which Johnnie Walker Blue is referenced (thankfully not by him) [Banquet Remix by Apathy]

Very excited for my next pay check I have almost all of it figured out. That’s probably a bad thing but I have decided to actually save some of it. We’ll see how that ends up going. I’m going to guess that Mike and I will end up drinking it in some for or another. On the Upside it’s a biggie!

I already told you what I was listening to…what do you want from me!

Brothers In Arms

Well I should have posted a few days ago but here we are… this last week has been amazingly busy with work piling up by the minute and trying to figure out the rigmarole of school bureaucracy. Seriously for a community college, MC has like fifteen deans and way too much red tape. I’m sort of surprised that anyone dumb is able to wade through it all. Elitist comments aside, Thursday is day one of the new year and I’m looking forward. It will be nice to get back to the routine. Even though I didn’t really have much of a summer vacation. Whatever.

Saturday Night was great. It was Dave’s going away party over in College Park. A bunch of people showed up most of whom I knew which was surprising. A bit on the drama heavy side but otherwise a great party. I tried to go as pretentious as possible (read: Morrissey T-Shirt, Red Velvet Corduroy Jacket, Vintage Aviators), which is always fun. Allen-the-beer-guy came through as usual with a great porter and the amount of liquor around amazed even the most jaded of drinkers. The Summerville brothers have no lost their touch…

TV Geek is up and sort of running at www.tv-geek.blogspot.com for all to check out and hopefully on Friday there will be a real post up after primetime is over.

Hoping to make it down to St. Mary’s this coming weekend, which will be fun, I would imagine. Nothing else really.

Listening to Please Drive Faster by Braid and This Charming Man by The Smiths

News...And A Different Direction?

This is becoming more and more routine. Every four days. Like clock work for the past couple of posts. This week was ridiculously good. Bad new to begin with but good news at the end. ‘Nuff’ said about all that. I think this one of the vary rare weekend posts. So there wont be much to report on the Greg making merry front. However I had a good time tonight hangs in Potomac with friends (Nando and Skippy). Long and crazy discussions ranging from the mildly inappropriate to the illegal in every sense. I’ve been saying for years that I need a stenographer to record the things that come out of our mouths when over caffeinated, for posterity’s sake alone. At the moment I am sipping a lovely Killian’s Irish Red and waiting for my laundry to be done. In case any of my readers were curious.

School starts up on the 6th, which will be nice. A little structure in what has lately been an overly chaotic life. Work and school should be taking up most of my time from then on out, but I hope to get down to St. Mary’s as much as possible, by way of Fredrick of course (what’s 450 miles a weekend among friends). Also hoping to see a lot more of the Baltimore kids. So that’s were the plans are at the moment for the next couple months, a lot of buckling down and hopefully good weekends.

On the pop culture front, which I seem to be posting a lot about lately, I recently watched a great show. The pilot for Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip. And yes unfortunately that’s the real name (though I believe its primarily being called just Studio 60). It’s the new Aaron Sorkin project. For those who don’t know Sorkin wrote The West Wing (Seasons 1-4), Sports Night and probably most notably A Few Good Men. He is with out a doubt the best writer in television. Story, character, pacing. Everything seems to flow smoothly and when you add in his penchant for dealing with current events, it’s honestly moving at times. His new show takes a look behind the scenes at a show very similar to SNL. I wont say much about the pot which is quite good but the opening sequence is some of the most blunt and honest commentary on the state of television today that I have every heard. With the cast including Amanda Pete, Bradley Whitford (a West Wing alum), and Mathew Perry, it should prove to be just as good an ensemble cast as the West Wing was. The show premiers this fall. I got lucky and had a friend with nexflicks so I could see the early release. If you wont take my word for it after I made my Mom watch it (and she refuses to watch T.V. shows), she said that she was hooked and wouldn’t miss an episode.

Okay, so I’ve been watching a lot of FX lately and cant help but feel as if I am missing out huge on not watching Nip/Tuck. The show seems overly soapish (not that for me that’s a bad thing) but the promos make it seem like round-breaking television. I hate it when this happens, because trust me this is not the first time. Every time I look in TV Guide and see the listing for Lost I feel this pang of regret that I haven’t been addicted since the beginning. And the same thing happens with Grey’s Anatomy. Huge success and yet I don’t watch. The only two show I can really claim to have gotten in on the round floor of were 24 (I have only missed four episodes in four years) and, I am ashamed to admit…The O.C. I gave up on it at the end of Season 2 however it sucked me back in to see Marissa die and Ryan carry her off to Hallelujah which was the first song that they ever played when it was apparent that they would be together (granted one by Buckley and the other by Heap). Alright so I am a girl…whatever. I watch 24 too! I think I may have stumbled on my format that I was in search of a couple of posts back. Mike is the Music Jerk, and I shall be TV Geek…
This is purely a spur of the moment thing but I like it…changes may be to come


Stay tuned!


Ha ha…appropriate.

C'mon, C'mon

Well what a three day weekend. Friday I went up to Fredrick at the last minute to go see Snakes On A Plane. This movie could not be accused of false advertising. There were snakes, planes and Sam Jackson screaming his head off and gettin’ damn tiered of the reptilian passengers. It was fun and a better movie than I thought it would be going in. Half the fun was the twelve of us yelling and screaming through most of the flick.

Saturday was house-sitting at Sue’s. The dog was entertaining as usual, he ran into a few wall and chased his tail for about three hours. I stayed up all night and watched the first season of “Rescue Me” and the first season of “Weeds”. I have to say Rescue is one of my new favorite shows. The entire show is well written (unusual in the current TV landscape) and has storylines that are actually fresh and interesting on a regular basis (while occasionally bordering on the soap-opera side of things). Denis Leary’s character is always in turns hilarious and depressing in the worst ways (or best depending on how you like it). “Weeds” was also a lot of fun. The theme song is horrible something that doesn’t usually bother me, but this one is truly heinous. The show is based around a widow how turns to dealing weed in suburban California to make ends meet. It is funny for the most part and thoroughly odd, Kevin Nealon makes the show however as the city councilmen how can’t get through a day without a puff or ten. I’ll rent the second season as soon as it comes out at the end of the year if only because the last episode of the first has some great allusions to The Godfather.

Monday was spent looking everywhere for the second season of “Rescue Me” and hanging out with Nando at a 24 hour Dunkin’ Doughnuts which was fun, we both want to frequent it at about 3am for the people watching. The rest of the week will be work, work, work. Hopefully this will be a weekend of scotch and Baltimore or something along those lines. Anyway NFA party on the 2cd is in the not too distant future and I can’t wait. Should be a blow out…

Listening to: I'll Be Your Man by The Black Keys and Hugs for Boys by Braid

Rescue Me- 10:00pm Tuesdays on FX
Weeds- 10:00pm Mondays on Showtime
(For those interested)

Leaders Of Men

Now on to what everyone has been awaiting on baited breath for. Joy Division. You’ve already gotten a bit of what I wanted to say. So here is the rest. Mike has said that Joy Division is really only relevant today because they spawned New Order and lyrically. Content and not delivery. I’ll address that first. With the popularity of Bloc Party and others (Wolf Parade, Art Brut) one cant help but think of the minimalist synth lines that dominated the early eighties underground scene. And Mike would be right about lyrical delivery there. These bands sound more like Sumner than Curtis, however the sound that paved the way for this re-emergence of the post-punk sound (New York’s sixth or seventh Renaissance, not including Danny’s) was indeed inflected with Curtis’ off beat delivery. Think Interpol (Stella was A Diver, Obstacle 1), some of the Strokes demo stuff and even one or two tracks from the White Stripes Elephant when Jack White manages to stop being a nasally bastard. Alright even if you don’t buy that argument you’ll have to give me this one. Goth is founded heavily on the lyrical delivery, content and musicianship of Joy Division. Mike sort of claims it for New Order but if you listen to a band like VNV Nation or Kulture Culture arguable two of the more popular bands in goth. If you don’t hear the ghost of Ian in those voices then I think your crazy.
Now to turn to Hannet. This guy basically made Joy Division. He was the one who organized the bands sound and gave them an actual work ethic. His use of the Moog and the ADMS gave the entire Closer album, along with every Peel session they ever did actual weight. The distancing techniques that he used (recording not only the individual instruments but the cords themselves alone), was almost imperceptible but somehow important for the ethos of the band I think. Without him they would have stayed a band like Warsaw, which was only a cheap knock-off of the Sex Pistols when you come right down to it. Digital was the first thing Hannet did and it completely changed the sound not only of the area (making the Manchester scene), but of the band itself. Some will argue t was Tony Wilson but he only played the stuff on his TV show, Hanntet made the music. From then on Curtis knew what he wanted. Alright now to rag on New Order. Sort of. Basically the band gets kind of ruined for me when they take over half of Factory. I don’t know why but it ends up seeming so disingenuous compared to Joy Division how endured Wilson and his McLaren-like shenanigans. Granted music need to change; post punk was stale and the only thing really happening was no wave, even that was getting a bit hacky. Still there is something about Truth off of their first album Movement that pisses me off. Pop is pop and its commercial but they were just ripping off their old sounds and Sumner was trying to sound like Curtis so desperately at points its just kind of sad. I’m glad they found New York. If they didn’t I have a feeling every in Manchester would have strung them up. Thank god for power lies and corruption. Another Movement and I think even Mark Smith would have beaten them up, not that he has a problem with getting in fights or anything. Alright that’s enough I thought it might have been a bit better and I don’t think I really defened my point very well but its all just opinion anyway. I comes down to weather you think New Order could have happened without Joy Division. And f you feel history and influnces are more important then the organic growth that happens in a long lived band like New Order.

Listening to the Game’s Documentary oddly enough.

And yes Mike I get some of this from that book I read…

Snakes On A Plane (Bring It)

So I was watching MTV2’s Elite 8 and VH1’s Top 20, you know just flipping back and forth. There are some thoroughly crazy videos out these days. To run down the list: The first one I saw was the new Ok Go Single. The Video consisted of the four band members doing some ridiculous choreography on a series of treadmills. Watch this…its not a great song or anything but the treadmill dancing is worth it alone. The second was the new Pharell video. Of course it had the usual Rap excess but he brought it to a whole new level when he pours Crystal over his cornflakes…also I think the obligatorily “video vixens” might have been Alicia Keys and Ashanti. Does the new Justin Timberlake single bug the crap out of anyone else. I didn’t hate the first album or anything it was good pop, but damn the last minute of the song makes me want to rip my ears oof and give them to a deaf kid, then force him to listen to it as a cruel joke. The last and most ridiculous might be lost on most of you but trust me if you worked in Tower records of any length of time or are sixteen this will blow you minds. It was off the Snakes on a plan soundtrack. So you know its going to at least be an entertaining video but the artist in it were some of the brightest up and coming names in the indie-pop world. The lead singer for the Sounds, the lead singer for Midtown (I think) the lead singer for The Academy Is and the lead singer for The Gym Class Heroes. There is also a cameo if I don’t miss my guess from somebody in Fall Out Boy. Not the singer but maybe the bassist…I’m not sure. How they got all these guys in one song is insane. Oh wait I forgot…its SNAKES ON A MOTHERFUCKING PLANE! The song is not very good but hey whatever right. And yes Sam Jackson makes a cameo. Did I mention that the project is called Cobra Starship and the name of the song is Snakes On a Plane (Bring It)…And really; don’t think less of me for knowing this, I was subjected to this music day in and day out for five months at Tower. That and some of the stuff is catchy.


I’ve been working on my argument for the whole Joy Division v. New Order debate and I haven’t quite finished so that will be the next post. I want to sort of have that as a stand alone type thing. Anyway I apologize to Mike for totally stealing his format for the past two posts…that will hopefully stop soon.


In other news I have stated a second blog. Not that I can keep this one up. Its going to be a sort of art/philosophy thing. Both Mike and Shah have their own DAMO things and I wanted to be able to talk about art without the necessary absurdity that follows with DAMO.

I think I might…might be moving out soon due to some school stuff that I’ll go into later or not. But yeah anyone who is looking for a gainfully employed roommate let me know. I have a few options at the moment but nothing is definite yet. Not even the moving part.

Closer

A couple of things I want to talk about in this post. So bare with me:

1.)After the exam on Monday I may be headed up to the Green Mountain State to see an old friend, Drew. If I can get the money together, I’m hoping to leave early Thursday and be back either late Sunday or early Monday. Vermont is apparently cool (temperature wise) and quite beautiful. Added bonus: The Canadian border is only 10 miles away. Drinking age in Canada: like 4 or something.

2.) I found an old gift certificate to Best Buy the other night and went to go use it. As I perused the isles of electronic goodness, I finally narrowed my choices down to two CDs. The first was the new AFI release with a ridiculously bad name “Decemberunderground,” or “Show our Bones” by Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Both are apparently quite good from what I hear and both are a bit on the main stream side so I couldn’t decide for like a half hour. In the end I flipped a coin and got the AFI. I listened to it through in the car on the way back and I sort of liked it. It was different enough from Sing the Sorrow their last album but retained enough of the essence of what mad them popular in the first place. To those of you out there who are now thinking that I’m a stereotypical AFi fan note this; I have a normal relationship with my parents for the most part and I haven’t shopped at Hot Topic since I was sixteen. I do however think that AFI is an interesting pop band with a talented singer (as long as he doesn’t scream like a sparrow being eaten alive by Orson Wells. Miss Murder the single at the moments is probably the worst track on the CD, which is saying something because its not that bad of a song. The rest sort of blends together in the end, however the there are a few stand outs. Love Like Winter is nicely Stark, if lyrically bereft of any meaning and Summer Shudder is rousing. I wouldn’t say it makes me want to do things in the same way that Move Along by All American Rejects does but close. (Mike will be one of the few to understand but that’s okay. Anyway there is little buyer’s remorse for this one. However I am interested to hear the new Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

3.) As some of you may know Mike and I have a little running argument about which band is better Joy Division or New Order. While entirely futile and imbecilic, it is fun so I thought I would share some of my arguments on the topic with the readers at large. Joy division typifies the movement of post punk (almost as bad a name as emo) more than another band. You could say the New Order has the better sales, that PiL had the Name (Johnny Rotten), That Devo and Pere Ubu were around before but the core of what the movement was about had its most creditable start in Manchester. It was a city in decline. A former industrial juggernaut that at that point 1979-1982 was in such a wretched state, it could not help but breed the dissonant and alienating sound that Joy Division mastered. When you hear a song like Atrocity Exhibition you can feel the alienation the space and aimlessness that was abundant in the youth of the day. The music itself not just the lyrics give off that presence.

Alright I have to get back to work but this was part one of many in my argument…

Nietzsche

What a great weekend. Thursday I hung out with Panos and his girlfriend Indera at their place and listened to music and stuff. Friday I went into work early and left accordingly. I headed up to Fredrick around 1 and meet up with Mike to play video gamed until people go off work. Dave, Mike, Ricardo and myself went over to the mirage to smoke some hookah. Two of Mike’s friends from Baltimore came with us, Dustin and Aaron. A good time was had. We went up to Baltimore after to Dustin’s place and spent the remainder of the weekend celebrating the Lush’s Birthday. Which included: the inaugural bog wraith, watch too much L word, eating crappy pizza, and not sleeping at all on Saturday night. Yesterday as I was driving back to Fredrick we got lost on 95 twice and I sort of fell asleep. When mike asked me about a light in my car I blamed it on Angelina Jolie for some reason and went back to slumber land. All in all a weekend to remember. This week is going to be rough with a crap load of work and my last week of school. Anyway hopefully this weekend will involve a lot more sleep.

Listening to nothing because I forgot my iPod…

Delusions of Mediocrity

It seems that I just haven’t been able to keep this blog updated. I only posted once in the entire month of July. Well this is the third time I have said this I think but I’ll try to do this much more regularly, for my three readers out there. Well Session two of my summer courses is half over, and has been a lot of fun. Astronomy is interesting and our teacher is a hilarious. It’s been fun. Work is getting heavier though. With a night class it’s a little rough, but I am enjoying what I do (today at least). Socially I haven’t been doing that much. Just hanging out with friends and stuff. Carey came down a few weeks ago and I went up to Fredrick a while back then ended up drunk as fuck in College Park. Both were fun. Otherwise the only other thing I’ve been doing is house sitting for a friend of my mom’s. The house was really nice with the expanded cable, the dog was a bit weird (deaf and kind of blind) though. It was a nice break from the parents and all but it killed my going out capability. Anywho more to follow, I am having this grandiose idea that I want to give this blog a format, and not just an occasional update on my life. I’m thinking pop culture related but I have to figure out what exactly. Well that’s all for now, expect to see more of this in the near future, and I not bug me about it at will.

Listening to Untitled 3 by Dove Yellow Swans and Imagine by A Perfect Circle (Ah the weirdness of iPod Shuffle).
On a side note the title of this post is not a song, I just like the phrase. I just googled it and apparently it is a blog and a Magic: The Gathering card but has no significance in music…anyway.

Flamboyant

So I’m back at work. I’ve been broke for a while now and I got my old job WRIT back. So once again I shall be mad stressed and posting more regularly, since it seems that work is the only place I really did before (must be the forced free time). In addition my second summer session starts on Monday. So summer is over now, in July…Whatever I was bored more often than not while unemployed. So I went camping last weekend with Mike, Dave, Ricky and Matt. It was a blast. I’m not very outdoorsy but my good time was fueled by beer and hotdogs cooked on an open fire. This week has been a bit of a blur. I haven’t been doing much of anything really exciting; playing a lot of board games and hanging about with friends. Next week I have to kick it into gear if I want to be at College Park in January. This weekend is the last hurrah for a while so hopefully after I get off work I’ll make the rounds. My Bengali Tiger seems to be settling down nicely on the far shore, his manifest destiny at hand, and I couldn’t be happier for him. On the gossip front there have been a few more developments. The wronged wife has moved out as well and the vile husband is preparing to move in next door. My stomach turns on a regular basis these days, there a few more stories to tell that I think are more disgusting but I have to get back to changing the way all the files face (Corporate America sucks).

Listening to We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful by Morrissey and A Good Day by Smart Went Crazy. The first song is in no way a sign of my jealously towards anyone, its just a really good song. Also I have found my theme song: Flamboyant by The Pet Shop Boys…hence the post title.

Cheating Gets It Faster

So school is almost over. Just three more days of session one. Thank the lord! No more idiocy for at least a few weeks…until session two starts anyway. This weekend was drama-rama filled. The parents are totally insane about the house. They decided tonight, after our basement started to flood, that we would take it off the market. So I guess I will be here for a while longer; at least a year, when they try again next summer. So now I’m completely confused. I have spent the past couple of months trying to divorce myself from the notion that the place I have grown up in for about as long as I can remember is my home. That and the fact that I would no longer be living in the DC area. So now I have 12 more months to get reattached then go through the same thing again! SWEET!
Anyway enough of the self-loathing. Thursday is going to be “Greg & Mike’s Get Drunk and Listen to Music Night.” If anyone can come up with a better or snappier name, I’m all ears. Then its camping somewhere with the guys over the weekend somewhere.
Now on to the juicy stuff. As some of you may know, Mike and a few others have dubbed Potomac the OC of the east coast. I, having gone to school there, see it as a bit of an overstatement but also admit the slight truth of those words. Now contrary to what Dave says I do not live in Potomac. I live in Chevy Chase. A slightly more sane locale not too far away. That was until two weeks ago. Apparently I not only went to school in the east coast OC but I live in the pop-culture equivalent of Wysteria Lane (a desperate housewives reference for the uninitiated). I did not make up what follows but have changed the names for the sake of the children.
There are two houses down the street from me. One is a lovely two story colonial in step with the style of much of the neighborhood. It has a modest yard that is always neatly trimmed and is owned by a French woman we shall can “Rene.” She has two children and was married until recently, when her husband stormed out a few months ago for reasons unknown. Just across the way is the other house in our sordid tale. It is a monstrosity of architecture and an alter to the McMasion. It is owned however by a nice family, three kids and a dog. A seemingly happy marriage between “Joan” and “Lloyd.” Here is where our story turns all the darker gentle readers. I advise those with a moral bone in their body to turn away and await more innocent and lighter posts. But if you persist I shall continue. To understand the story it should be known that the children of these demented souls all know each other and are play-friends around the streets we call home. And so the parents too know each other from the close knit nature of our sleepy burg. Upon arriving home from camp Joan’s daughter began to talk about Rene. Joan took all this as a bit of hero worship, as she was beautiful and mysterious and French. However the conversation with the daughter took an interesting turn when the girl remarked that Rene often frequented the house while Joan was away. But most of all that Rene way Lloyd’s special friend and that the girl was not supposed to “tell mommy about daddy’s friend.” In exchange for her silence the girl was given anything she wanted by Rene. The daughter being only seven had no clue as to what was really going on but I am sure that those who read on past you humble authors disclaimer need no explanation. So in a blind fit of rage our victim, Joan, storms over to her former friend’s house and precedes to beat at the door. To no avail however. She persisted so long that the police arrived on the scene in time to see Joan red faced and crying on the curb having been pulled away from her foe by another neighbor and friend. No charges were filed to my knowledge; however the husband and Rene have not been seen since the altercation. And the reason that Rene’s husband left her a few months ago? She had been cheating on him with these two biker-gang wannabes! Also, the Lloyd and Rene’s “liaisons” all occurred on Joan’s bed! All of which came out a bit later.
Yeah I know, screwed up right? Well if you think that was messed up check in next week for installment two of Desperate Housewives: Chevy Chase Edition.

Listening to: my neighbors and all the gossip floating around… to keep you entertained.

File Under "Soft Core Seizures"

Well the month of June has been deliriously short. It is already almost over and I feel as if I haven’t yet had my fill. School has been rolling along at a break-neck pace and my final exams are just around the bend. I haven’t even figured out who I hate and who I sort of don’t detest yet. These mini summer sessions don’t allow the prerequisite time to form those important bonds that, as people keep reminding me, last a lifetime. If I have to associate with the people at Montgomery college for the rest of my life I may just end it all here and now. For example, an anecdote and moral for you all to enjoy.
It was a warm and lovely afternoon about two weeks ago. I was sitting down to what should have been a very interesting History class. That day the discussion was about the role of the supreme court as interpreted by Marshall in the Marbury v. Madison case and it’s apposing argument in the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions. Now if you know me well, you know I love me some activist courts (read: Warren). However I know full well that the argument is better for no judicial review. A great contradiction in our system but anyway. I was hoping for a bit of lively debate. If not with my fellow peers than at least with the teacher, who surprisingly hates all Federal control. So as he launched into the lecture portion of the class the eyes began to glaze. I could see it begin in the back and reach farther up like some virulent form of the bird flu that spreads via political theory being espoused. As the topic turned to the difference between the Federalists and the National Democrats a lone girl raised her hand. I was suitably impressed. Had she managed to hold on. Would see seek to delve into the grand divide of who in fact should govern? Or maybe, on and even deeper level question the very nature of power and it’s implementation as Madison did in Federalist 10? I awaited the question on bated breath (read the cute girl in class might actually be kind of smart…yay!). Finally the instructor acknowledged her. And she asked, and I quote, “Who is John Adams, I’ve never heard of him?”
The teacher went on to explain Adams’ role in the founding of our county…again, and launched back into the regular lecture. He didn’t even flinch or make a face. As if it was nothing, he went plodding along. I sat in shock. Disbelieving that she had said those words. This girl’s first language was English, so there was no cultural divide to play it off. She was rich (a Louis Vinton handbag) so she at least went to a decent public school(though going to a bad one shouldn’t be an excuse) maybe even a private school. Her stupidity baffled me utterly. John Adams is not the most important figure in History. That is to be sure. I don’t even like him all that much. But to have never even heard of him before? It made me sad. This was not the girls fault. The education system had fail her. She would be doomed to her ignorance, never knowing our second president well or the fact that she was woefully unprepared to have a conversation much less work in the fields of the Humanities (I learned latter she was a history major).
As I sat at my desk reflecting over this statement and its impact on me (missing completely the debate of judicial review) I was given new resolve. This would not happen to anyone else. Then I realized that was almost as dumb as what that poor girl had just said. So I made a new resolve. To be a teacher and not let anyone fall through the cracks. I had already made this resolve, so in another augmentation I decided that for a time at least I would teach in the public school system. I realize that my naïveté and energetic approach will quickly vanish in the face of drastic poverty, ignorance, and lethargy, but if I can shape one mind, give one person the gift that I was given (a good education), teach one person who John Adams is before college for God’s Sake, I think I will have made a deference. As Shah would say “affect society for the better.” This may be my elitist brand of socialism but I think I just might pull it off.
Okay rant complete. I hope you enjoyed it. So on to the more pressing matters at hand. Shah is leaving me forever tomorrow. He sets out on a new chapter in the ever fascinating book that is his life, that I have titled “The Bengali Tiger: Brown-skinned and Loving It (An American Tale)” That’s the working title anyway. I love you brother. Have a great time and I’ll hopefully see you again soon. Socially the past few days have been interesting. We went to a party at Ricardo’s house on Friday evening. It was great, I got to play a little Winning Eleven, and drink a bit too much. There was also a two hour conversation with Mike and Shah consecutively about the art movement we started, DAMO, and our theories about art in general. No consensus was reached, which is sort of predictably DAMO. See the links in the previous posts comment section for their interpretations. I’ll give you all mine just as soon as I figure them out exactly. Anyway I’m looking forward to my first weekend in a post-Shah world. Mike and I should be heading up to “The Reading City” some time this weekend to allow me to connect all the stories to some faces. Otherwise it’s a world-cup filled week, which will hopefully allow me to see a few interesting games. Now on to homework and a little light MySpace stalking…

Listening to Kyrie by Flowers In The Attic and Kyrie (from the Requiem Mass) by Mozart (oddly they sound nothing alike…)

More Than A Life Away

Well its been a while…Um right now I cant remember exactly what I’ve been up to in great detail. I have stopped working and am taking class this summer. So busy with that. Not a lot else, really. Hanging with friends and enjoying a work free schedule. Except not because I’m quite broke…Ah well. Anywho there wasn’t anything to this post. So I’ll leave off with my excitement for Thursday. Shah goodness, which I have been having withdrawals from, all and all, hopefully a good weekend. Back to homework…

Listening to Celestial by Brisky, Northern Lights by Smith & Pledger
And Guarana by Marc Marberg

New Dawn Fades

So last night was an utter blast. I got home and played a bunch of Oblivion and watched some Sports Night. Then I watched a movie called 24 Hour Party People. It was basically a biopic of Tony Wilson and the rise of the Manchester scene through the mid seventies to the mid nineties. The film was at times tedious (mainly due to the choppy editing) but on a whole incredible. For those who don’t know Tony Wilson was the owner of the Hacienda (one of the most famous night clubs ever) and the “owner” of Factory Records (Joy Division, New Order, Happy Mondays). I highly recommend the movie to anyone interested in the era or the people (Ian Curtis, Bernard Sumner, Martin Hannett). I also watched The Safety of Objects. It wasn’t as good as the other but interesting none the less. It was a kooky little tale of anti-materialism and inter-personal relationships colliding in a suburban neighborhood. Who knew Joshua Jackson could act a bit? 24 was of course amazing and the next season will be a heartbreaker as Mr. Sutherland won’t be there long…Anyway all of yesterday should have been a crap shoot. I got into a car accident yesterday coming home from work. My car got all banged up (but drivable). And insurance is going to be a total bitch but I keep it all in perspective when I realize that it might have been much, much worse. Well the weekend is fast approaching and I’m looking forward to it as I have to start school on Tuesday. And don’t be too surprised is all I talk about is Joy Division and Ian Curtis next time you see me…judge me not harshly it’s just the movie.

Listening to a shit load of Joy Division and New Order

Man Sitting In A Chair, Staring At A Cube

I am returned from my weekend feeling tired and out of sorts…a good sign by most accounts. It was one of those weekends that feels absolutely jam-packed, but when you look back, flew by too quickly. Friday I got off work at around 1 (early…yay!) and headed up to Fredrick to chill with Mike and Dave. We went over to the hookah bar there and had a lovely margarita flavored time. I also got some great CDs on loan from Mike including the hilarious Emo Summer (I’m not sure it is supposed to be though) and the absolutely amazing Indian Summer discography “Science 1994.” We all headed over to College Park and had a party at the Summerville's place. I met this awesome guy there how brews his own beer, which was amazingly good and I think in hindsight more than a little over-proofed. Saturday was the Avalon Party over at my house. It was a blast but I wish that more people had shown up. I tried a new drink called “Calimocho” which involved coke red wine and lime juice. It sounds horrible and for a wine snob such as myself I was very skeptical. However is was great…A kind of sangria like concoction that was both refreshing and very alcoholic (my too favorite qualities in a summer drink). Some friends brought over this portable fire pit as well, so we ended up all staying outside in the rather brisk spring night around a roaring blaze. It felt more like autumn than spring. Sunday however was a nightmare. At the ass crack of noon after staying up till 5 we had people over to see the house. So as usual I got dressed cleaned my room and was promptly kicked out. I went over to Hollywood Video to get a few titles (The Producers is quite funny…in an over the top musical sort of way). Then it happened; I went to into the Game Stop or whatever it was next door and bought Oblivion. It will destroy my life. Amazing graphics (which I was surprised my computer can actually run) and an immediately engrossing story line. That and the opening cut scene has Capt. John-Luc Picard as the voice of the emperor! My summer will now, I’m sure, be spent playing as much of this game as humanly possible. I almost don’t even want to watch the finale of 24 tonight so that I can play Oblivion. HA just kidding; I could never miss the ever raspy-voiced Kiefer as Jack Bauer…KILLING THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES ON PRIMETIME!!!! The writers for this show are absolutely “round the bend.” It should be a good night…24 to watch and an Oblivion Gate to close in the city of Kavatch…sweet (insert Homer drooling noise here)

Listening to Fascination Street by The Cure, I’ll Believe In Anything by Wolf Parade
And Girlfriend Is Worse by The Ex Models

Readymade

Another day of the 7-5 mad dash. Work is crazy as always. Too much to do…well other people anyway. I’m at my desk at the moment taking a bit of an early afternoon/post lunch blog break (the best kind). No much for me to do at the moment. There are a couple of long term projects but I’m not up for starting them today. On a related topic my employment with WRIT will be at an end as of the 26th. I start school on the 30th and work will not be an option as I go back to high school levels of attendance time. I have had a job way more often than not since I was thirteen; and while the prospect of work has never been a real turn on I feel as if I never accomplish anything when I don’t. A horrible paradox to be sure, but what isn’t in my life… Enough of the mooping, this weekend is weighing heavily on my mind. I’m so sick of the general area I’ve been in of late that I’m desperate for a change. But desperate enough to do something even more lame than hang about a Starbucks just in a different county? No…I think…
Anyway the grandiose ideas that have been sprouting the fertile bed of boredom which is my mind have lead me to believe that I may have built up the weekend too much so as to make any eventuality seem less by comparison to my wild and impossible dreams. And if you guessed that that last sentence was me just trying to see how long I could drag it out…you are right. So I bought Stadium Arcadium by The Red Hot Chili Peppers a few days ago because I liked the single a lot (“Dani California”). Interestingly the new single, “By the Way” and “Californiacation” are a trilogy about some girl that Flea and Kiedis know. Thought that was a new idea. At least the part about spreading them over, what, like five years almost I think. The new CD surprised me by being a double. After liking the last two albums as much as I did and a strong first single I was “amped” to hear the Chili Pepper goodness. I have yet to try the second disc (entitled “Mars” and its counterpart “Jupiter”) the first CD is a big disappointment. For the beginning they run back to their older sound (funk-rock) that in my opinion falls fairly flat coming from a bunch of southern Californian white boys. Now I shall reserve judgment of the entire thing until I muster the courage and give Mars a listen. However if it follows along the lines of the track “Readymade” I think there will be one less Peppers fan in the world. I also, in the same stroke, bought “10,000 Days” the new Tool album. I think that Tool can be incredibly pretentious (which is saying something) and on a whole a decent but overly name-dropped band. That and Maynard Keenan looks like he should have stopped doing heroin along with everyone else in 1997. The New CD will take you an a journey. Well more a trip really. The guitar solos are something that Stevie Ray Vaughan would masturbate to and the vocals are subsumed in the rolling bass and rhythm section of what is either an orchestra or a talented mixer either is wasting talent on this simplistic back beat hodgepodge. That being said I do like the album for the most part. There are some good almost-single-worthy songs on it notably “Pot” and “Rosetta Stoned.” Think they had a substance in mind or on the mind when in the studio? Enough I made this longer than I intended.

Listening to Urbana Is Too Dark by Braid
and Something about A Nightmare by Camera Obscura
(To wash the bad taste out of my ears)