Junior Boys, Douglas Fir Lounge, 09/28/06

It was the unexpected dance party of the year.

I had seen Junior Boys once before (a year ago at Bottom of the Hill), but it was a bit underwhelming -- the crowd was largely indifferent and I spent most of the concert trying to reconcile the ethereal electro-pop of Last Exit with the two earthly and very real performers on stage.

Thus it was with some surprise that I found Greenspan and Didemus moving not only hearts, but feet and torsos as well. While I would describe the opening number of the set and the title track of their new album So This Is Goodbye as many things - wistful, somber, devastatingly beautiful - danceable is not the first adjective to come to mind. Yet, from the onset, the audience swayed to every added rhythmic texture and the closer (and my personal favorite track) "Under the Sun", in particular, set the crowd in a frenzy.

The first person to find me a bootleg of this or any other show from this tour wins the internet.

The race card

I haven’t watched Survivor since season two. (With the exception of All Stars, of course, but life is all about making sweeping statements and then adding in the exceptions. At least sometimes.)

I don’t think much of the idea, generally speaking. It’s an interesting idea as far as reality TV goes. Half titillating and half social commentary. But then I saw something the other day that brought it into perspective.

I was reading menshealth.com (yeah, I know... but it’s really not bad) and they had one of those oh-so-reliable online polls running. I don’t remember the exact question, but it was along the lines of “Which race will win on Survivor?”

The results... about 80% of respondents said that the “Caucusian” tribe would win... 10% said that the “African-American” tribe would win, and the remaining 10% was split between the “Asian” tribe and the “Latino” tribe.

That’s pretty close to the CIA Factbook’s numbers for racial breakdown here in the U.S.

So clearly the show is going to provide some profound insight on our complex cultural and racial makeup as a country.

(I've watched the first two episodes and I can honestly say that it’s still just Survivor with all it’s tedium and boredom. A show nearly left behind by shifts in cultural time. A show that is always better when watched in fast-forward.)

Negative dianetics

GLITTER MONSTER!

A lie #2

For the past year, I have been posting under the alias M S Martinez.

Just for one day

My first television reversal of the season…

Heroes is good. Really good.

I watched the pilot episode tonight and I’m sold on the idea. The episode actually gave me shivers three times. That has to be a record.

(And, incidentally, I don’t think that Lost has ever done that.)

Now, let’s hope the ratings are good enough to keep it on the air.

In related news I started a small fire in my kitchen tonight and then walked through it. No, seriously though I was cooking some spring rolls and let the towel I was using as a hot mitt get too far down in the oven. The frayed end literally caught fire. The good news is that I didn’t panic. I just turned on the faucet and put it out. Odd though, anyway.

Now I Know Why You Want To Hate Me

The iPod/iTunes hegemony is now complete.

After a year, my entire music collection has finally been categorized under the surveillance of the iTunes panopticon; not a single moment of my listening escapes its quantitative glare. My CDs have been fully imported, my music files properly labeled -- every song reified by a restricting and largely inapplicable genre tag (whenever possible, the suffix -core was added [sadcore/slowcore = lolz]). Trashy singles lurking in the shadows of my harddrive were pitilessly culled (sayonara MI:II Theme).

Just as the automobile revolutionized teenage sexuality, so too has the iPod transformed the way I consume music. Marx would have been proud.

Minor revelations:

I have started to gauge my mental health by my weekly ratio of Joy Division:New Order aural intake (I listened to the entirety of Heart and Soul last weekend, but balanced it out with some choice Low-Life and Technique cuts -- "Sunrise" is so awesome).

I don't feel like I would ever put Ladytron's "Flicking Your Switch" on any sort of all-time favorite list, but the song dominated my play-count for the better part of the year. Reciprocally, I have only listened to "Popscene" - quite possibly my favorite song by my favorite band - once in the past 12 months. Interesting? Probably only to me and my gross self-absorption.

Major revelations:

With the switch from CD player to iPod nano, I have become terribly lazy with music. Instead of listening to an album front to back, I often listen to the same song on repeat, ad nausem (ie. "Flicking") -- sometimes indulging in the terrible habit of listening to twenty seconds of a song before moving on (in the future there will only be hooks).

"What is wrong with that?" you ask.

Indeed, it is a question that stretches back to Plato's Gorgias ("Will you, who are so desirous to gratify others, afford a slight gratification to me?" -- oh Socrates, you card!), to which I would respond that I take greater pleasure in experiencing a wide palate of music. Thus, in order to combat my propensity to listen to The Hoofbeats morning night day, I have made it a goal to listen to every song in my iTunes at least once. After nine or so months, I am still only a third of the way through my collection (its Goldsmith B-I-G), but it has been worthwhile for all those deep album tracks that I overlooked in the past.

Finally (and this may sound terribly hipster of me), over the past few month I have converted to the vinyl format. Not for any pretentious audiophile reasons ("Vinyl just sounds warmer, man."), I just no longer use CDs - I rip them on my computer and then they gather dust on my shelf. In contrast to the digital form, vinyl has such a physicality to it -- which, as a materialist, I love. Plus, it is hard to be an impulse buyer of vinyl -- which, as a starving artist, my wallet loves. Time will tell if this is simply a fad and if I will appreciate my vinyl as much when I have to lug it around anywhere.

So this is what it feels like...

...when doves cry.

Apparently Logan has been cheating on us since April 2006. That's nearly a year (if you ignore those missing seven months), and starting towards a decade. And I've been oblivious the whole time.

The saddest thing is that I'm probably the only one who didn't know. The most saddest thing is that I'm not even that surprised.

"Smell ya later, Logan. Smell ya later forever!"

Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me.

Because I know you are all rushing out to see it during its second week of release. Let me spare you the effort. Nell and I saw The Last Kiss last night. It was unpleasant, humorless -- and false to its very core. The only shred of truth it mustered (which is statistically impressive when you think of all the cliches Haggis managed to ham into two hours) was the barely insightful revelation by Zach Braff: "I'm an asshole."

If you want some vérité in your cinéma, please go rent the shoe-string indie The Puffy Chair. The characters may be insufferable, but at least they act and talk like actual human beings.

p.s. The Office season premier tonight!

My bet: Pam and Jim pretend like the kiss never happened
Mark's bet: Pam is pregnant and married
Sure bet: Season Three is going to bring the touchingly funny moments (and the funnily touching moments)

Amazon.com thinks I’m gay

Check out their latest musical recommendation.

asif

A topography of loss.

The many facets of loss.

We learn to guard against its most conspicuous forms.

A stray polaroid; a meaningful song.

But then there are moments that sneak up on you; lateral connections you would never expect, tiny slivers of memory that snag at your mind.

I was reading a book, and off-handedly the narrator began listing ballet terms - attitude, ciseaux, balancé - words that have no technical meaning for me, but which caused my mind to wander carelessly away from the narrative at hand.

[She never liked the portrait hanging in her living room -- of her as a young ballerina, lunging into some stylized pose (surely with some equally impressive french term to describe it). I always loved the picture. It hinted at some richly textured past that I would never know, but which left some indelible stamp. That despite how ever long I knew her, there were always going to be hidden contours of her personality that would surprise and delight me.]

I tried adopting one of those habits of highly successful people -- writing down my consuming thoughts, exorcizing the demons on the printed page and freeing my my mind from the clutter (perhaps that is how highly successful people cope, they write "reminisce painfully about xxxx" on a notecard and file it away in the "to dwell" cabinet).

I can't say it has been an all too successful strategy. I now have reams of memories (not literally, most are stored somewhere on my hard-drive, but reams seemed more satisfying than kilobytes; although the technological homonym is apt) but little to show for it in added emotional clarity.

Loss is a strange geometry.

A distorted reality is now a necessity to be free...

I had to fight both times I saw Elliott Smith in concert.

The first time was the Field Day concert in New York.

It was raining that day. Bad enough that my cousins wanted to waste our $90 tickets. (I wasn’t happy about that... I had paid for two of the three tickets.)

I had to fight to make I was there. (I had already missed two bands I was dying to see... I wasn’t willing to do that with Elliott Smith.)

The second time was at the University of Utah. It was a free concert... and the last concert Elliott Smith ever played.

I had to fight twice. Once when David and Brandon agreed to go, and then reneged at the last second. The second when the “adults” in my family refused to let me go alone. (Even though it was a concert at the school I went to alone every day.)

It was striking how much power he had on stage. He was so clearly saturnine. (A word I never thought I would use... but that feels so unnaturally appropriate.) Even the second time I saw him perform, when he seemed to be happier, there was an underlying sadness in his performance, his posture and his laugh. It was like something you could feel in the air.

I still remember when I heard that Elliott Smith had died. It was one of those odd moments. Not surprising, but shocking. Not unexpected, but disappointing. I didn’t even feel like talking to anyone about it. (A first for me. I’m willing to spread news, good or bad.)

I didn’t mention it to anyone for days. It was the first time I felt sad about a celebrity dying. That may sound callous, but I have never been able to see celebrities as real, human people. In this day and age, celebrities have unfortunately become commodified to a point where they seem more like brands than people.

It wasn’t like that with Elliott Smith. His presence felt so real. And his absence does too.

“what I used to be will pass away and then you’ll see
that all I want now is happiness for you and me”

The weight of the whirled...

There are a few details left. The baker, for instance. Who will print the invitation. (I’ve finished the layout.) Where to get the flowers from. (Rachel knows what kind she wants. I’d write the name here, but I’d get it wrong. There are so many details now.)

Mostly it’s all figured out. Dresses. Tuxedos. Food. Location. Time. (Ceremony: 4:30 PM, December 2nd... Reception follows immediately.)

The point of this story: Despite what you may have heard, planning a wedding isn’t all that stressful. It’s kind of fun. At least so far.

Which isn’t to say that there isn’t a certain type of stress. This week, for instance, we have to get our invitation in order. While that isn’t too difficult (I’ve already finished the layout and we already know quantities, etc.), there are complications. Namely, we have to have it printed. And for a small, invitation size quantity the price could be unruly or... not.

Price. That’s an interesting point. Apparently in nine years – the time that has passed since Rachel older sister and my older sister got married (to their husbands, that is) – prices for wedding related expenses have doubled or tripled. And much like gasoline, the only real economic impetus for that price increase is that wedding service vendors can charge that much... not that they need to stay competitive.

And that’s the only real stress I care to mention... that everyone else really has the power in the wedding. The vendors... the family... the parents... whomever. No one can really have total control. (Which I think is a good thing... and thank God for Rachel. If she weren’t such a kind, unpretentious person this whole thing could be stressful instead of fun.)

That’s all I have to say about it... for the moment.

(There’s a little explanation about wedding planning Logan... still feels boring to me. But let me know what you think.)

Nostalgiarama Gimel

Dang...

Well Logan, Nintendo has officially announced the launch details for the Wii.

The Wii will launch November 19 at a $250 price point that includes the system (white only at launch), the Wii Sports game, one controller and nunchuck, an AC adapter, an audio/video cable, a sensor bar, a sensor bar stand, a Wii console stand, and two batteries.

There will be at least 15 games at launch, and 30 games by year-end. The controller itself sells for $39.99 with the nunchuck and classic controller attachments selling for $19.99 each.

There will also be 30 “legacy” titles available at launch for Virtual Console. These are old games for the NES, SNES, N64, Sega Genesis and TurbGraphix 16. Virtual Console games will sell for $5 and up.

They also announce some of the online features. Some are fairly cool. You can purchase an Opera browser and surf the web. Read a news channel or look at a weather channel for free. Or view pictures or listen to MP3s off of SD memory cards.

Overall I’m a little disappointed in the announcement. $250 is too much for a game system. I don’t like the idea of spending more than $200. Plus they cut DVD video playback. Granted, I have a DVD player. But I like the idea of converging all of my media needs into one tiny device. (I do have a one-bedroom apartment, after all.)

An open letter (of thanks).

It has been a little over a year since the attack.

I no longer feel the whiplash when I close my eyes, but that day still haunts me.

Huddled in the corner under the harsh florescent lights of my bare apartment, I slowly self-destructed. I was all alone in an unknown city, too afraid to leave my building. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat. My body recoiled to the slightest touch.

In desperation I called my ex-girlfriend. She was incredibly kind to take my phone call, but weeks later, for whatever reason, she decided we should no longer speak and abandoned me.

I had nowhere else to turn.

My parents would never rest again if they knew the truth. My first and last psychiatrist was a tool. My new friends in Chicago found the whole incident curiously amusing. I was too ashamed to call my other friends. How could I possibly tell them of what happened? How could I burden them with the wanton cruelty of it all?

So I huddled in my corner, alienated from everyone.

Mark once asked if stories can change anything, whether they can help.

I don't have a good answer for that.

What I do know, however, is that having an outlet for those stories, a venue to construct and share narratives with an audience, imagined or not, can change everything.

You may not have read my first posting. Like most of my writing, it is infuriatingly obscure and indirect (and, as Mark loves to remind me, pointless wordy -- circumlocutory even).

Reading it over again, I can see how a random reader would probably never infer that on my first day in Chicago, while walking to my apartment building after signing my lease, I was beat-up by a gang of high school students.

But clarity was never the point. Catharsis was.

And although I was embarrassed by the posting (you can tell because I posted something else immediately afterwards), a terrible weight had finally lifted.

This is an overly dramatic way (I am 40 percent emo after all) of thanking Mark for opening up the blog as a space for us all to express and share our thoughts, as random and as trite as they may be.

Until I read about Scopic Fixations in his next novel, this blog will stand as a testament to his generosity of spirit.

TB...

I have bad news... I have tuberculosis.

That reflects my Point of View that they should start referring to it as TeleBoring rather than Television. (The tuberculosis connection is merely coincidental.)

The reason I haven’t posted my Fall TV Preview... there aren’t any new shows I care to watch.

Heroes... yes. I suppose that looks relatively interesting. Kind of a Midnight’s Children lite. At least... I did think it looked interesting until I read the Entertainment Weekly and the creator talking about the theme of the show sounded like he was talking about the need for Jesus return. Let’s see... a superhero Christian allegory... hmm... I think I seen that about six million times before. (Give or take.)

I’ve already watched two of the new shows.

‘Til Death is all the bad clichés and jokes about marriage you could think of in five seconds with heavy metal music blaring in the background and bamboo stuck under every finger and toenail, but stretched out to a 22-minute runtime and spoke through unlikable, shallow and exaggerated characters. I won’t be watching that again.

Oddly enough, Happy Hour – the show after ‘Til Death that I’d heard nothing about – was actually funny. Kind of like a mean and more challenging Seinfeld with sharp writing and more absurdity. Just one problem... it’s up against The Office. So I won’t be watching it or recording it or, probably, thinking about it again.

This TV season to me just means new episodes of shows that I’ve already been watching. And maybe more time with my Nintendo DS.

I'm gon' know it when I play it

Yesterday I received the following MySpace bulletin from M1 of Dead Prez:


Given the fact that Dead Prez apparently had no idea that 50 Cent ripped them off on his new track "The Bomb," I think it's pretty remarkable that M1 is so calm about it. Well, mad props to M1 for finding the bright side in this bull shit. Personally, I don' think ripping off and trashing a classic has much of a bright side, and Sam and I have put our heads together to address this abomination one violation at a time:

1. First and foremost, taking something beautiful and wiping shit all over it. This must be how a constitutional lawyer/historian—someone who has spent his/her life dedicated to the US Constitution—feels when he/she reads the headline, "Secret NSA Wiretapping Program Reveled." It's a slap in the face. A rose by any other name smells as sweet, unless you wipe ball-sweat on it.

2. This is the worst rapping we've ever heard. Sam raps better than this! 50 sounds out of breath by the end of his first sentence. It sounds like he doesnt even give a shit what's coming out of his mouth. Did he just wake up from a long night of huffing paint thinner? That would be the only excuse for his low-energy, half asleep, mumbled 'flowing.' Let's remember that G-Unit and 50 Cent were supposedly discovered in the underground scene of New York, where they gained notoriety for exemplary, crowd pleaseing rapping. This was a story, so they say, of talent more than marketability. Clearly.

3. Okay, so 50 says one semi-interesting thing on the track: "Man Puffy knows who hit that nigga, man, that nigga saw." But wait… Did he? Intriguing theory, but 50 has even less evidence to support his claim than Mos in his most recent conspiracy-theory hook. When Mos says "Bush knocked down the Towers," he's not necessarily claiming that Bush personally orchestrated the 9/11 attacks. He's talking about how Bush (and others) provoked the attacks and failed to read between the lines to prevent them. When 50 Cent says Puffy knows who killed Biggy, he's pulling a New York Daily News--that is--sensationalizing, probably just so the track gets noticed and discussed. To infer that Puffy knows who shot Biggie because "that nigga saw" is like saying Jackie-O knew who shot JFK because she was in the car. But Puffy wasn't even in the same car as Biggy! Besides, the most common theories are that Shug Knight offed Biggy because he's a fucking maniac, the Crips did it because Biggy owed them money, or a combination of the two. The one other theory involves possible police involvement, but only insofar as the cops would have assisted the hit rather than ordering it. Does Puffy suck? Yes. But come on, 50. You gotta do better than that. Plus (and I'll be the last one to feel sorry for the pelt pushing P-Diddy), it's kinda harsh to accuse a dude of killing his best friend so you can sell more records, don't you think? Shows his character, at least (as if we didn't see it already).

4. G-unit is a lot of things, but they're not hip-hop. Not in the proverbial sense, which is what Dead Prez meant, nor in the musical sense, which is what 50 implies. Musically, G-Unit just sucks. Their tracks are the ones Dre and Emenem won't use for themselves. The lyrics? Well, take a look for yourself. Here's the first stanza from 50's most popular song, In da Club:

You can find me in the club, bottle full of bub
Look mommy I got the X if you into takin' drugs
I'm into havin sex I aint into makin' love
So come give me a hug if you into getting rubbed.

Even Jay-Z is guilty of many unfavorable things by Dead Prez' standards, but at least the brother has talent!

Worse, G-Unit and 50 Cent perpetuate the culture Dead Prez so eloquently criticizes and so adamantly hates. I mean, 50 even has product placement in his songs for God's sake! ("Go shory / It's your birthday / We don' party like it's your birthday / We gun' sip Bacardi like it's your birthday...") G-Unit involves themselves in bullshit feuds with other rappers like the ones that, one could argue, ultimately led to the deaths of Biggy and TuPac. In the immortal words of WuTang Clan, "Shame on a nigga who try to run game on a nigga."

To Dead Prez, hip hop is a movement. Rather, it's the musical/cultural expression of a movement--one against the culture that 50 both embodies and perpetuates. Hip-hop is about freedom from 50's consumeristic "hip-hop."

You have these young brothers out there who think they are getting something
They're gonna make a living with.
They is getting something they can buy a car with.
The white people have cars, why can't I have a car?
They getting something they can get a piece of gold,
White people have gold, why can't I have gold?
They getting something to get a house,
White people have a house, why can't I have a house?
And they actually think that there's something that's bringing resources to them,
But they're killing themselves…and they're slowly dying without knowing it.
That's what's happening to the community.
That's exactly and precisely what's happening to the community.

A New Season

In the immortal words of Mark, four new shows that I'm interested in:

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip seems to be the show to beat this year. It has the pedigree, the critical buzz -- and Steven Weber.

Despite covering similar territory, I will probably even try to catch 30 Rock for Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin, a terribly underrated comedic actor. Its success is going to depend on whether or not it can bring the funny. (Wouldn't this fit perfectly behind the My Name is Earl/The Office hour?)

Did JJ Abrams create The Nine, because it seems to be following the Lost formula down to casting ex-Party of Five actors. Will this be as lame as last year's knockoff crop? Probably.

And finally, my dark horse candidate of the year - Heroes. It has been getting mixed reviews, but the concept is intriguing. Let's see if it can execute.

Et tu, Mark?

Nostalgiarama Beth

Netflix Two Cents: Band of Brothers

Band of Brothers (2001)

Verdict: Wait, people honestly considered giving Saving Private Ryan the Oscar? GTFO! This should be the last visual representation of American presence in the European theatre of World War II.

Tell me about being a grown-up

You finally built it, I see. It's taller than I expected.

You wring your hands and press them against the sandstone. It feels warm.

Are you satisfied?

It's surrounded by a wrought iron black fence and brown dry grass (which matches the sandstone) and spots of green and taller weeds. It looks bright against the other glassy gray buildings.

You seem disappointed.

Why don't you walk down to the bridge and come back. It looks better against the sky from there.

Boots crunch leaves and cement. Walking towards the river (full of boats and white hats and brown ducks) the lady you always see walking across the bridge at this time with pink and black splattered sunglasses hikes up her skirt and scuttles past you.

You walk back.

See, now isn't that better?
You did all of that on your own.

Let me buy you a beer. Or better yet, I will buy you flowers. Pretty flowers that look like white and yellow fireworks that have little crooks at the end of the petals that you can hook your finger under.

That will help. It always helps me.

Marathon Tracker: 09/06/06

First 5K: 27.17

Nostalgiarama Aleph

HO GUM

NOUN: A whimsical game played at the Hoplex [see Century 16] or any other area densely populated with hoes. At a mutually determined time, all players must insert an agreed upon object (usually a vessel containing some defined condiment) into their respective mouths and masticate until completion (or, according to regional variations, until the dissolution of said interior condiment).

Involves three levels or phases of increasing difficulty; although items may vary based on location, a traditional round consists of the following stages:
1) Sugar and/or Sweet'n Lo packet.
2) Coffee Creamer
3) Tea Bag

Established 1998. Rumored origins as a method to avoid socializing with Ned Stanley (and other impeached elected officials).

VERB: Inflected forms: Ho gummed, ho gumming.

PHRASAL VERB: Ho gumming it; procrastinating, dawdling.

Hey. They misprinted our tickets for Pleasantville. Let's ho gum it!

Jocks always win

My cousin encouraged me to take this quiz: You scored as Geek/Nerd. Haha! ok. go computer geeks! Loner 53% Geek/Nerd 53% Emo Kid 40% "Ghetto" 33% Stoner 27% Punk 27% Hot 27% Prep 20% Goth 13% Jock 7% What Highschool Clique Do You Belong To? created with QuizFarm.com