amplified to rock
AIM, how I missed thee: Well, not really. But I did miss having exchanges like these:
Born Sedated: I didn't think the concert was until 9 or so, so my pants are in the washer right now. All of my pants.
Born Sedated: So I'll probably have to wear pajama pants or something. heh
nanetteamplified: all of your pants? so you're not wearing pants now?
Born Sedated: Pajama pants. You're not that lucky!
nanetteamplified: brad isn't wearing pants
StucoHomes: hmm . . so nothing new going on apparently
The hierarchy goes like this: red, purple, yellow, green, orange: Happiness is finding a full, unopened package of Skittles in your handbag. Thanks, Matty. You will be amply rewarded for this in the afterlife.
Also, I am making a rare appearance on AIM this afternoon. Catch me now because I may not be on again for three more weeks. Heh.
Gasp! Maybe I could start a meme: Inspired by
this, a list of things I wanted to be when I was a kid:
Astronaut. Like Whatsername, I wanted to be an astronaut. Mrs. Naue, my incredible, awesome, inspirational (but not in that cheesy Oprah way) enrichment teacher from grade school, was really into space exploration. We would always do mini-units about astronauts and space travel, and I would get really excited about it. She would answer all of our questions (and every year, we asked variations on the same questions, particularly "How do astronauts poop in zero gravity?" We were in grade school, okay? These things are important when you're in grade school!) Sure, astronaut food sucked (did you ever eat that shitty flavored-sawdust tasting "astronaut ice cream"? Ick...) but you'd get to fly through space on a rocket and play around in zero gravity. Mrs. Naue was actually the runner-up for the Teacher in Space contest, the one that Christa McAuliffe won. If Mrs. Naue would have died in the space shuttle explosion...man. I don't even want to think about that. Oddly enough, I didn't really like science fiction books or movies, but I romanticized space travel like you wouldn't believe. This dream died (as did any other dreams of a math/science based career) right around 7th and 8th grade, when the double whammy of awful teachers known as Mrs. Burleson (7th grade science) and Mr. Chorney (8th grade algebra) killed any interest in math and science that I previously had. Thanks, assholes. I really fucking appreciate the favor. I could have been an astronaut, or at least an astrophysicist.
Ballerina. What was I thinking? I was a clumsy oaf of a kid. My mom indulged my desires and sent me to ballet lessons, which I did not particularly enjoy. I thought that I'd get to wear a frilly pink tutu and pink ballet slippers at my lessons. Instead, I had to wear a practice leotard, which wasn't fun like a frilly pink tutu. We didn't do any dancing, either...it was mostly tumbling, which I couldn't do. I've never been able to do a somersault or a cartwheel or a roundoff. And the balance beam (which I always called "balance bean") gave me the creeps. I tried to reawaken my ballerina aspirations in college by taking a one-credit ballet class. After two sessions I transferred into jazz dance. I sucked at that too. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a bad dancer, but getting up at 9 AM to dance to "Good Vibrations" by Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch (this was 1994) was not my idea of a good time. Thanks to a screw-up at the registrar's office, I was able to drop the class before I failed it.
Teacher. I don't know if this one counts because I actually was a teacher, but I spent a lot of time wanting to be a teacher. The idea of grade books, scratch-and-sniff stickers, access to the teacher's lounge, and report cards made me excited. Admittedly, I got a little jolt of excitement when I was given my Very First Grade Book when I student taught, and I used the fact that I was a teacher as an excuse to buy tons of scratch-and-sniff stickers, mainly because I liked them and I wanted them for my collection. And teaching would be a lot of fun if it wasn't for ninety percent of the students, their parents, and administration.
Secretary. My mom probably would have kicked my ass if she had heard me say that one. But I developed a bad case of Office Supply Lust at an early age, thanks to my friend Denise's mom, who was a secretary. She would bring home all sorts of carbon-paper forms, notepads, and other weird office ephemera for us to play with. We'd set up in Denise's basement and play all day, sometimes stopping to watch 9 to 5, which we loved for some inexplicable reason. I think it fed our secretary fantasies.
Journalist. This started in the 8th grade, when I created a minor controversy in my junior high by writing a critical editorial about the school building's leaky roof. This was followed by a hard-hitting piece about the school building's faulty air conditioning. Both of these editorials got the attention of the principal, who first tried to get them pulled (that great champion of first amendment rights, the journalism teacher, came to my rescue) and then wrote very angry responses. I felt so important, like I was making positive change in the world. My writing skills got me noticed, and when a much-hated substitute teacher keeled over from a heart attack on her way out of the school building one October afternoon, I was given the task of writing an obituary for her. Front-page stuff! I didn't take journalism in high school because the newspaper sucked, and though I took two journalism classes in college, I never went anywhere on the university newspaper staff because I'm bad with deadlines and because I couldn't stand most of the people on the newspaper staff. They were your typical dull uptight English major types who were on the newspaper staff because it would look good on their resumes. I think the high point of my university newspaper career was the article I wrote about the steaming manhole behind Mills Hall (which was, itself, quite the "steaming manhole").
Lawyer. What the hell *was* I thinking? I don't even like lawyer TV shows. I entertained this notion until I got to college, at which point I abandoned it. On the little surveys where they asked your intended major, I kept writing "political science/pre-law." Ugh. My dad probably would have been a lot happier with me if I had become a lawyer, though.
Art Museum Curator. I went through that same pretentious phase that many teens go through. You know, the one where I wore all black and tried to smoke (sorry, Mom) and made sure that everyone knew how Different and Misunderstood I was. It was during this phase that I got all into art and art museums (and male art students) and I decided that I wanted to be a curator at an art museum. That is, until I looked into the requirements for an art history major and I realized that I'd have to take a sequence of studio classes. Art classes in college aren't like art classes in high school. They expect you to have talent in college. I do not have much artistic talent, so I scratched that one off the list.
Band Director. Now there's geeky, and there's geeky. In retrospect, this was probably the geekiest possible career choice that I ever entertained. I have no idea why the thought of being a band director was so appealing. Maybe it's the idea of having control over a group of people. Maybe it's because I had a lot of fun at band camp. All I know is that I really wanted to be a high school band director for a while.
Oddly enough, I never wanted to be a librarian. Probably because that's what my mother did, and people would always ask me if I was going to be a librarian "just like my mother," a thought that really made me feel icky. Indeed, I am going to be a librarian, but not just like my mother, because she deals with the public. I hope that I never have to deal with the public, ever. I'm not cut out to bicker with irate patrons over five-cent fines.
I almost forgot the subhead. Maybe I should quit this stupid subhead thing: If it was December, this morning's scenery--leafless tress covered with just the right amount of snow--would have been strikingly beautiful. Unfortunately, it's March 16, so it just pissed me off. Spring can get here any time now. Add to that a delay caused by a slow-moving train and the fact that people seem to have forgotten how to drive in the snow, and this morning's commute was a certified, bona-fide royal pain in the ass. The snow was wet and gloppy, though, so the Charming Car's exterior got a washing, of sorts.
Today I work from 9-5, but I only have one appointment, so I'll be spending most of the day sitting on my ass. I should do some reading. I got paid yesterday, I should remember to pick up my paycheck.
Adam emailed me about Survivor. I feel a lot better knowing that someone else who I consider "cool" likes that stupid show.
I spent some time reading questions/responses at the NYLPM forum, which seems to be a pretty busy place. Lots of good questions over there, take a look, you might have fun with it.
Beware the Ides of March: Every time I write a really fucking clever post that makes me laugh, Blogger manages to eat it. I know, I should copy everything to the clipboard before I post it, but I'm lazy. And there shouldn't be any need for that. So I'm going to try to recreate what I just did, and it probably isn't going to be as funny as the original.
Now all the members of the "Exes in Massachusetts Club"* have weblogs**: Colin's weblog has moved. I think Aaron did a good job designing it, except that logo has been known to cause seizures in small children. Beware. Now that Colin has a good ad-free webpage with a nice design, hopefully he'll keep it up instead of abandoning it.
---
* Last year sometime, Colin, Aaron, and I were sitting at a table at the Winery. I looked at them and declared "we all have exes in Massachusetts!" I thought that was kind of an odd coincidence, considering that we're all from Illinois.
** I know, Aaron got all "semantics" on us and declared that hollowstreets.net isn't a "weblog," it's a "journal." He's splitting hairs, really. I expect no less from him...nyah nyah nyah. Now I'm going to go hide under the table. I'm afraid of the (in best Wesley Willis voice) OUT-BUUUUUURST...
Lazy, lazy day: But I have an excuse, really. I didn't go to bed until 2:30 last night. The Boyfriend has headed off to Colorado for his company ski trip (and he tells me that if I had met him in November, I could have gone! And I replied by telling him that his timing would have had to be completely *spot-on*, first of all, and that he'd probably be tired of me by now if he had met me back then, because I think I was awfully tiresome then, what with my getting fired and all that beeswax. I was all non-stop drama. I am so boring now compared to how I was then. Anyhow...) So I spent last night with him, after working all day. I did end up driving home instead of sleeping there, mainly because he had to leave around 5:30 to get to the airport, and I didn't want to wake up that early. So I slept in my own bed, got up way later than I should have (11:30...ah, the joys of working part-time...) and spent the day doing very little.
I did watch Almost Famous, though. And I rented three other movies, all old ones that I haven't seen. Two of them are based on Hemingway novels. No, I'm not watching the movies instead of reading the books...I'm actually saving For Whom the Bell Tolls until I've finished the book.
I have a matter that requires the assistance of those of you who are well-connected within your local music scenes. The band Lefty's Deceiver is going on tour next month. They're trying to book shows right now, and they're looking for venues in the following places: St. Louis, Nashville, Cincinnati, Columbus, OH, and Bloomington, IN. They are also looking for bands to play with them in Chicago. If you can be of assistance, email me and I'll pass the information on to Maura, who will pass the information on to the band. Or you could just visit the band's website and click on "contact" and let them know yourself. Really, I just want the email.
Brian Roberts (king of Pitchfork news and my Official Minneapolis Tour Guide) has started a weblog. Go read it 'cause it's good.
I don't think anything I could possibly say could make this more amusing: Tommy Shaw from STYX has an
online journal, of sorts. I wonder how his touring stories will compare to the touring stories our pals over at
Are You Wearing a Wire? will be telling in the near future...will they tell such tales of rock 'n roll debauchery as
this one? (Only the cakes wouldn't contain any lard, of course. LARD in CAKE? Maybe I'm just completely dumb when it comes to cooking, but why would a CAKE contain LARD? To add beefy flavor?)
Everything was cool until my co-worker emitted a piercing scream in my ear: It's been a long day, but it's gone by fast, so I've got nothing to complain about. People have been getting on my nerves lately around here. I feel weird writing about it, I really do like my co-workers and I like working here, but sometimes the incessant chatter gets to me. Sometimes I just want quiet. And I know the chattery people aren't doing it to piss me off, they aren't doing it to be annoying, it's just that sometimes they
are annoying.
So anyway, the subhead is true. I had a co-worker emit a piercing scream about four feet from my ear. She was looking for a thesaurus and she found it and she screeched for some reason and it hurt my ear. Five minutes later, my ear still hurts. It was an otherworldly screech.
I posted at New York London Paris Munich for the first time today. It's my slightly scattershot review of the new Destiny's Child single. That line "I'm not gonna dis you on the Internet/Cause my mom taught me better than that" never fails to amuse me. Sort of like the line in "What's Your Fantasy?" by Ludacris about having sex in the library. You know, on top of books, but you can't be too loud...
The problem with putting subheads before every post is that you have to think of clever things to say: Found via
Plugged In:
Complete Chaos, which seems to be a newsblog about Canadian indie bands/shows/news/information (with what seems like an emphasis on Ontario). It's part of Jen and Davina's
site, which features tons of information about Canadian indie rock. Good stuff.
Two months and one day: According to
weezer.net, the release date for the new Weezer album is MAY 15. The first single is "Hash Pipe."
I was happy to see that The Biscuit City Road Fan Club is listed in the "Blogs of Note" column at Blogger. It's about time something interesting was listed there, it's mostly "E-book news" or "E-business bullshit" or other "serious" weblogs about "serious" things. It's good to see something fun up there once in a while.
It was a soul-shattering experience: I did lots and lots of stuff today, most of it without even leaving the house. I'm planning a trip down to Decatur to hang out with
my favorite Irishman on Saturday, and that means I have to get all my schoolwork done ahead of time because I'll be gone for most of the weekend.
Tomorrow is going to be a long-ass day. I work all day (9 AM to 8 PM), then I'm headed up to Tim's to watch Survivor (Shut up, Matty).
I am boring. I have nothing to say. I will refer you to some other people from Chicago who are very cool and interesting: Ann, Liza, Jason, Matt. Go read their stuff. I'll have interesting stuff to say tomorrow.
My nerd glasses are stained with tears: From Matty: an emo haiku. I smell a contest...
tattered cardigan
borrowed from a better time
sleeves stretched from hugging
W! ASH! ING! TON, BABY! D.C.!: This year's Vacation Destination has now been set: I'm headed to Washington, D.C. sometime in late April or early May.
Colin is supposed to be going, as well as Andy and Tim. Colin wants to rent a van for the trip, so we'll see what happens. No plans are definite yet, it all depends on how things come together. Now, if I'm going to D.C., I intend to make a quick jaunt up to Philly to visit some people up there. (
Maura?
Greg? Jon?)
Tour guides, of course, are always welcome. As are dinner companions, people who know of interesting places to go, etc. I know I got a couple of emails about this trip the last time I mentioned it (whenever that was), and I'll get back to you once I have some definite dates/times set up.
We went to a poetry slam, then we had a talk about semantics. Also, he listened patiently to many of my stories: That is what happened last night. Tim and I went to the
Uptown Poetry Slam at the Green Mill, which was all right. The open mic was pretty good, the slam itself was kind of weak. I found myself sitting there thinking "I could do this" when usually I sit there being fairly impressed with most of the poets. I think I should write poetry. Or maybe I should just find some of my more "poetic" weblog entries and read them like poems. I don't know...
The semantics talk was your usual "boyfriend/girlfriend" thing. No biggie. Well, yeah, I guess it is kind of a biggie, uh, let's not talk about all that. It's weird, going from being involved with people with personal webpages to being involved with someone who doesn't have a personal webpage. I feel a need to respect his privacy, and for that reason, I keep really quiet about what's going on in our relationship and will most likely continue to do so. Rest assured, he is quite nice and I am very happy.
Those of you who live in Chicago (or the Chicago area) may be interested in this--it's the Chicago Reader Restaurant Finder. I've been using it to look up new and exciting places to eat. Mmmmm, food.
There seems to be an alien pubic hair in my gin. Never seen it before in my life: My friend Colin has decided to update his weblog, the
Prarie Home Compinion, again. I offered to host him here at spoonbender.org, we'll see if he takes me up on the offer. He promises that he's going to use his weblog to "stir up some shit," so make sure you check it out.
This is the one where I go to see Weezer, I spend a lot of money on Weezer stuff, and then I neglect the weblog for an entire day while I watch The Godfather: Okay, so
Weezer totally rocked. Not that that's surprising or anything. Matty and I both wish they had played more songs from
Pinkerton, but we ain't trippin'. No way. Not when we were lucky enough to get to see the show in the first place.
Jackie and
Nick are incredibly cool. You should already know that, of course, but it should be repeated. Now, the full recap of the evening:
I left work at 3 on Friday so I could get some stuff done before I took off for the show. I went to the bank and got money to spend on Weezer stuff. I figured I could allow myself $70 to spend at the show. Granted, this is probably a little excessive considering how little money I actually make, but I figured a splurge was in order. I mean, this is Weezer we're talking about here. Anyhow, I had plans to meet up with Jackie and Nick at Kan Zaman at 5:30 for yummy Middle Eastern food. Traffic sucked, so I was delayed, but they were delayed as well so it was all good. We ate, we talked, it was awesome. Matty got up there around 6:45 and we got to watch him eat, which is always fun.
Then we all piled into Nick's vehicle and drove to the Aragon. There were people standing all along Lawrence, probably trying to buy tickets. What amazed me was that nobody was *asking* if anyone had extra tickets. They were all just sort of standing there silently. We were searched, we were ushered in to the venue.
I haven't been to the Aragon since 1997. (I was seeing The Orb and the Chemical Brothers, if you must know. Heh.) I remembered that it was big and that the sound is not so great and that there are twinkly fake stars in the ceiling. I had apparently forgotten how huge it really is. It's a vast, cavernous sort of place. We got a good laugh out of the cardboard cutouts of the band, and I'm now kicking myself for not having a picture taken. (Adam did, though, so you should check his out.) We stood around through Ozma, whose logo is really unfortunate looking (Matty described them as being "the new Journey," I didn't think they were that bad, but they didn't blow me away). We moved up a little during the Get Up Kids set. The Get Up Kids redeeming factor was the dancing keyboard player. Did anyone else get a big jolt out of watching him?
Between The Get Up Kids and Weezer, they were playing some goofy tunes on the sound system. I'm talking Bon Jovi, Ratt, that kind of stuff. Most memorable pre-Weezer moment: the sound of a chorus of several thousand people singing along with "Bohemian Rhapsody." I kid you not. It blew me away. Weezer came on just as "Sweet Child O'Mine" was starting. Damn.
I've never been one for reviewing shows, I have a hard time with it. Do I stick to a recap of what they played, or do I follow my instincts and talk about the audience? I don't know, so I guess I'll talk about a little of both. I think the high point for me was "The Good Life," just because I absolutely love that song. The new stuff all sounds great, and I'm really looking forward to the new album. Matty and I both found Rivers' stage presence to be a little disconcerting--he just sort of stands there without any sort of facial expression whatsoever. But that might have been exaggerated by the fact that we were watching him on a very large screen.
There were people standing next to us who were smoking pot, and the two guys behind me were doing a play-by-play of everything that was happening, both in the show and in the audience. Every time the pot smokers would light their joint, the guys behind me would say "someone's smoking pot!" Then they'd go back to either singing along or yammering about what song would be played next. I think their worst behavior took place during "Surf Wax America" when one of them decided that my shoulder looked like a perfect thing to grab on to while jumping. Uh, no, dude. I think squeezing his hand really hard when I pushed it off my shoulder helped get the point across. He apologized profusely and I told him not to let it happen again.
Matty says that the guy standing in front of him was worse, but I don't know about that.
Post-show, I bought Weezer stuff. I got the black long-sleeved shirt, the red t-shirt, and the red sticker. The red sticker now resides on the back of my Charming Car. It looks quite nice. Then we went outside to wait (and wait and wait and wait) for Jared. The wait was fun but cold. The stream of people coming out of the Aragon was neverending, and it was hard to find him in the crowd. Nick saw someone who looked like Jared several times, but it wasn't him. Yelling his name didn't help either. We found him (or he found us) eventually, and we were able to leave. Nick dropped Matty and I off at my car, and we said our goodbyes. Nick and Jackie and Jared were going directly back to Champaign so Nick and Jared could leave for South by Southwest. Lucky bastards. I'm going next year. I mean it.
I spent yesterday recovering from rockshow mania. (I ended up staying up way late on Friday night and waking up way early on Saturday morning.) I decided (I don't know why) that I really wanted to watch The Godfather, so I went to the library and rented it and watched it. I can't believe I had never seen it before. I'm in the middle of The Godfather Part II right now, I'll probably finish watching that today.
Also of note: witness my shining moment of rock journalism over at Splendid. You can also see the back of my head in all its scarlet glory. (This was right after I colored my hair scarlet so it was still really bright.) I asked one question in that interview: how do you pick the songs that you play on tour? I was totally unprepared, you see. The interview went well, mainly because Jason was really, really prepared. He even had his questions typed. And they were good questions, too. I about died when Pollard said he was planning to do something with Mac from Superchunk. Hot damn.
Tonight, I'm off to the Uptown Poetry Slam up at the Green Mill. I went a couple of weeks ago and it was awesome fun. It made me want to write poetry again.
