big ideas

on letting go

2012-02-06T10:42:00.003-05:00

"I let go and I float away
a million miles in a couple days
I just came back here to say:
goodbye"

-"Hot Shit" by Quasi

Letting go can seem contradictory in that it requires relinquishing some choices while embracing others. It is not an increased exertion of effort, it is simply a shift. One that displays inertia. Think of letting go as a boulder: towering stoically above you or catapulting wildly down a mountainside.

Letting go does not mean giving up, giving in, giving back, or any unwanted concession. It can mean those things. Don't ask me. I cannot tell you what letting go means for you. I can say that letting go is choosing. Letting go is choosing the gut feeling, listening to the voice at the back of your head, and going with your instincts. Letting go is finding the path to happiness. Letting go is as hard as you let it be.

Letting go means freeing yourself from obligations to anyone but yourself. You don't have any. And as you have no obligations to anyone else, no one has any obligations to you. A desire, maybe, but not an obligation. When you have no obligations to anyone else, you are stuck doing things for yourself. Reading that book that's been sitting on your shelf. Writing that short story that's been in your head. Putting together that Christmas present you got last year. Telling someone how you really feel rather than what you think they'd like to hear. By forgiving ourselves obligations to others, we can begin to give genuinely and selflessly.

Letting go means believing that you have the answer. It also means humbly admitting that you have been wrong before (and can always be wrong again.) You were wrong thinking that happiness lies in the next _____________. That any temporary solution has the potential to become permanent. That patience is the same thing as sacrifice. That you aren't capable of defining your own feelings. Were you wanting someone else to do that for you?

Letting go means knowing that you control your own happiness. Happiness is an answer on a multiple choice test written on the inside of your brain. If you're far enough away, it can be tough to make out which answer is which. Up close, it's a no-brainer.

amongst the ether

2011-12-14T16:48:00.006-05:00

As a brief update on my life, let me point out the obvious and say that I haven't been posting to this blog. Would I claim that writing came mainly as catharsis for a troubled mind, and that I can prove my own well-being with this fact? No, I don't claim to. Do I intended to instead recount the whirl-winded weekends of the past two months; the burning effigy of heartache and moving on, whether forced or embodied so passively and wholly as to be overwhelming? I can think of better stories and wider smiles. What does my heart want?

Who am I to say?

As I sat in row H at Meadowbrook Theater with great perspective on the performance below, (and how appropriate that perspective be an underlying thread to so many of life's obstacles!) I was swollen: with tears and emotion. An appreciation much like I had felt years prior, when I first saw their yearly production of A Christmas Carol. But this time was also totally different. I wielded a slight apprehension because I had been looking forward to this day for so long. Perhaps because my life has filled with a hazy happiness that I am afraid will vanish back into the ether. Yet I am not so stubborn or impatient as to reach headily into the mist and demand a tangible explanation.

I am not asking to alight like snow on a Christmas morning: so aesthetically profound and absolute as to be absurd. I am not seeking solace or an unmatched immersion within someone else. My goal is growth. My method is balance. Because my ex-girlfriend will still say 'hi' to me, and I will remember her quietly, for a time, in melodramatic chicken-scratched scribblings like: "she deserved none of my kindness/and my distaste is a noxious vapor/if she cannot see it she will feel it when she sleeps". Welp. Some of my exes must have had as much to say about me and I keep my fingers crossed they led to more than a sob story. If all relationships only led to wasted words of regretted mistakes and unrequited emotions, there would be no life to carry on with optimistic musings.

There's a lesson in there somewhere, amongst the ether.

album review: Spleen and Ideal

2011-10-25T12:26:00.001-04:00

One week from November. My thoughts are restless and I am torn from minute to minute on a specific subject of focus. Each thought my mind settles on feels drastically important. I think about the "Haunted History of Halloween" DVD that I'd been Netflixing for the past couple years and decided to buy on eBay. Something about the fantastic past of my favorite time of year sinks deeper and deeper in my understanding as I get older. Before Capitalism and Catholicism, the Autumn was a time of reflecting on the Summer behind and the Winter ahead. On revering the dead and being thankful for life. I've noticed recently how growth encapsulates an understanding of the past, present and future all at once. Autumn, then, seems the ideal time for growth. Just as I take comfort in how the resonation of knowledge echoes louder within me, I am grateful to feel that appreciation. Sometimes I feel full of mistakes; and other times, full of life. Whichever to focus on?

I think about the impending nights of celebration for Halloween. I think of seasonal traditions and flavorings - intended to wrangle our attention on the unavoidable shift of seasons. On a rainy Tuesday, alone for the time, at work but unburdened, I sit beside a space heater in an overly airconditioned office. The Wikipedia page of a movie I'd recently watched linked me to the band Dead Can Dance, who I'd never heard before. Their name seemed appropriate for the time of year, and with the aid of YouTube I've filled this tiny room with the anguished cries of Spleen and Ideal. Their sound is esoteric. The kind I can't imagine so many YouTubers enjoying as the numerous likes and comments would lead me to believe. I like to remind myself: different strokes for different folks.

I'm doing this the difficult way - searching for each track after the previous one finishes. I don't feel an impulse to rush out an own a copy for myself, or even download a pirated version. The brief internet search is more than enough effort, and this is far from a new favorite album of mine. That's not to say I can't appreciate it for art. Here and there a passage will catch my ear but, even as I listen, the album is now more about a memory. A slight inspiration for some creative writing, it'll even coax me into admitting that I've missed my frequent musings on this website. Oh, the distractions we're capable of diverting to! Will I ever settle calmly into a routine of reprised elements: favorite pastimes and activities that would nestle me further into the seat of my own personality? I don't believe so. Scavenging for sanity in a world that seems bent on driving me out of my mind; that struggle may be the "Enigma of the Absolute" (as the title of track six tells me.) Though I could feel certain of something, might that be the evolving puzzle of life? Far be it from me to denounce the conventions of reprised celebrations. Instead, I look at traditions through the lens of ages. Religion and economy have shaped Halloween into what it is, and I will adapt my own personal holiday.

low road/high road

2011-10-19T11:59:00.000-04:00

(In the interest of keeping this blog relevant, as I disclaimed when I made the original announcement, I no longer have a girlfriend. No one deadening the echoed warnings of my wisdom. No one begging for whatever I was selflessly predisposed to giving. This is not an entry of spite. This is not an entry that I'll be linking on her Facebook page. This entry will not come with oblique "look at my blog" text message. Should she read this, her line of sight may be the underside of my nose, but I am on an even keel. I am writing this entry for me.

That's not to say I haven't felt my fair share of pain and suffering. I'm sure we both have. Something as caustic as the three months we were artificially attached the other's abdomen could not end quietly. That doesn't separate either of us from the chaff of our peers. But I feel more at peace with my own abilities for attempting to overcome heartache. It's feeling less like foreshadowing and more and more like a dully realized lesson. The choice will always be in my perspective. Everyone has their own and the free will to change it whenever they please. I choose to look at hardships as obstacles I can overcome. I don't always know the way, and finding one becomes a challenge rather than an unbearable task. Writing a blog entry is my catharsis. Let me tell you, it's not my only one.)

A mantra I've adopted recently is "look at the low road; take the high road". There's a lot of insight to be gained from considering all of the evil, spiteful, selfish, uncaring things that are possible when someone forces change on you. Often we want to cause pain to those who caused pain on us, but anger is nothing worth holding onto. "Fighting fire with fire", as they say. When you consider the lowest routes you could take, you recognize them for what they are: misguided attempts to improve your situation. With any bad idea comes a good one, and when you feel what would be the wrong decision, the right one becomes clearer. Any energy, positive or negative, will flow through you. Let it change you, and through your actions make it a better energy. Who doesn't want to make their world better? Who doesn't want to make themselves better? That potential is in us all the time. Utilizing it is not always easy, but it is not impossible.

this sure isn't Summer

2011-09-09T15:54:00.006-04:00

I knew a joy in Summer I cannot explain outside of context. I know that it remains safely in the pocket of my memory, as every day it fades further and further out of time and space. I could tell the stories; I could explain the smiles; but you would never be able to feel them like I did. Every artist creates something new, they cannot resurrect a dead thought into new life, only pay appreciation.

Where does reminiscing become melancholy? I believe the line is drawn right about where learning ends and longing begins. When the change of seasons strikes, it tells you nothing. You must speak to yourself how you are affected. You must speak to others through your actions, and you must not be afraid of how you change. You are not the only one changing.

It was the the start of my junior year of high school when I discovered Rites of Spring, a seminal band in my musical growth. The coarse guitars and fleet, pounding rhythms were not the vehicle I expected for their lauded introspection, but it turned out to be a veil which my ignorance needed only time to peek through. Now, when I listen to Guy's pained screams I can feel how much honesty is on display. I admire the haunting and caustic atmosphere they create. Listening now is a whirlwind of memories (standing on my parent's porch waiting for the bus, gearing up for a return to class while a cooled air settles over the world) and also newly grasped understanding of the message their lyrics convey. It feels like Autumn music, and Autumn has always been my favorite season. I experience something similar with Osker's Idle Will Kill. Though my memories settle on my tattoo of the album's title, my interpretation and appreciation is updated. The result of a newer and better self.

While I have begun to separate the year into two seasons, I respect more so the transitory periods of Spring and Fall. They are times of change. Now is the time for whiskey, hot coffee, and cinnamon. For the long sleeves of jackets and sweaters. For reassessment. My instinct is to think of hibernation, a pulling in of thoughts and emotions. Sheltering myself from the pains of the world. How easily we make ourselves vulnerable in the Summer. But in that vulnerability is where to find growth. That is one thing that does not need to hide under browned leaves and rain. Black pointed branches reaching for the greying sky, as the limbs of frightened children afraid to be left alone. The whistled warning of wind in an alleyway. Decorations of dead things. If you find yourself listening to nature as it settles itself into sleeping for the Winter, do not resign to let your memories die with its flora. Do not use the time of year as an excuse. As humans, we must shelter from the elements, but not from each other.

album review: Bonfires on the Heath

2011-09-06T22:03:00.001-04:00

There is a perfect Autumnal album.

Summer ended quickly this year. One holiday weekend and the air was cold, and called me to sweaters and my corduroy sport coat. This air has always felt like home, how it bites lightly on my cheeks when I go out walking. How I love to go out walking.

I have only listened to this album once (and now again as I type this.) When I discovered The Clientele earlier this year, a quick browse of their discography on Wikipedia enlightened me to this album, and the quote from an Allmusic review ("the most perfect, autumnal, English pop record imaginable.") had me queuing it into listening position for when the season struck. The swirling assortment of instruments felt at home among the leave littered streets of my hometown. When the moon peeked through clouds as I set out to the album's opener, "I Wonder Who We Are", I was at peace.

all night long

2011-09-02T10:11:00.001-04:00

One night last summer, driving home from a show in Detroit, I was completely awake and full of energy. It was the kind of moment where you can't stop smiling and every worry or concern is miles away from the steering wheel and the stretch of road ahead. I had recently burned a copy of The Good Earth by The Feelies and was enjoying how it mingled with the sounds of Woodward rushing by outside my open windows. Track six came on, and before it was over I wanted to hear it again. The second time through was even better; as was the third. All the way home I kept the song on repeat. Pulling into my driveway, I decided to continue my listening marathon, grabbed my iPod, and went for a late night walk. I could feel the air rushing past me as I walked. There was a feeling to stay frozen in: the clam power of purpose. The radiance of a summer evening that just won't end.

Nights like those are when favorite songs and discovered.

you can trust meI'm not the television

2011-08-24T14:25:00.000-04:00

never say "every"

2011-07-31T16:47:00.005-04:00

As I write this, my favorite song is "Everyone is My Friend" by Owls.

Who doesn't have a favorite song? Or more importantly: who hasn't had more than one favorite song over the course of their lifetime?

Somewhere in the haze of my early twenties I came more and more accustomed to the belief that I have a lot of life ahead of me to live. I've spent much time fighting the planning, saving, fore-thinking part of my brain that wants tomorrow to brim with hope and love in a thoughtless abandonment of the moment. The precious unavoidable present! It begs and pleads and demands you to listen to it. While the past is a finished painting and the future is an evolving, ephemeral idea.

I would not say that all time is wasted looking outside the current moment. Growth seems to be all at once a respect for our entire life: the constantly changing "now" as well as what's behind us that we may have forgotten and what's ahead of us that we may not see. So much is outside of certainty. No, there are no absolutes. Never say "never" and never say "every" (or its derivatives). I don't believe myself capable of speaking honestly of everything, everyone or every time. Attempts I've made to wield such concepts are fraught with obsession over their opposites. That is because life lies somewhere in the middle, and my brain is telling me not to find comfort in the fallibility of extreme ideas like "every" and "none". The great human struggle is to prove everything, but the most important things cannot be proven. Happiness comes not from being certain of our thoughts, but unafraid of their uncertainty.

a weekend in five acts

2011-07-29T10:28:00.008-04:00

Quarter after nine and the editors I work with aren't even here. Yesterday I never saw them because they had taken clients out to lunch. A long lunch. The kind you just don't come back from.

And that was Thursday.

Next week we should have our new offices all but fully furnished. I've been peeping down the hall to check them out - partially painted walls, plastic covered floors and an adjoining hallway full of furniture and artwork. I was told by the designer we're going for a "Mid-Century modern" look. What intrigued me was the use of antique wood for all of the editors' desks. For the other assistant and myself, a tiny office for loading footage will become our home away from home. I'll bring in artwork and such to adorn my half; leaving empty coffee cups and used straws that my girlfriend gives to me. Last night she was excitedly congratulating me on having my own space, shared and tiny though it may be.

(Side note: Should I make a point about having a girlfriend? Last time I had one I felt no inclination to, but this time is different. While I'm not writing an outright entry about her, an aside seems necessary in the grand scheme of making this blog relevant and informative. I've always walked the fine line between anecdotal and observatory. She's good people, though she won't make me stray from my established convention of leaving off proper names. Ask me about the night we met; that's a good story.)

Today, little sleep plays as an overture to an incredible weekend. Act I is iced coffee, the second installment of my Spoon "greatest hits" played from my laptop while I wait for my coworkers to show up and some assessment of tapes shipped to us from the Chicago office. A long lunch, laundry and maybe a trip to the gym will be an entr'acte before seeing Bars of Gold at Small's this evening. Saturday will be the inaugural Pig & Whiskey in downtown Ferndale. In keeping with the tradition I started of drinking only clear liquor in the summer and brown in winter, I'll be gravitating toward the beer tent. I am looking forward to some tasty pulled pork and introducing my girlfriend to a number of my friends. That night my band plays our first show in a long time at the Atlas Bar in Hamtramck. The declining action of Sunday might mean visiting my parents, or my neighbor's for a fundraiser picnic or perhaps even sitting home and doing fuck all. When the weekend ends and some sort of summation is attempted, like in most of my entries, the most important message to convey; the moral of the story; is that life is not scripted.

2011, part 1 (a recap)

2011-07-01T13:04:00.005-04:00

What happens after the ball drops on the new year is a mysterious ether of forgotten time. You kiss someone, you drink what's left of a bottle of Jägermeister and you spill your guts to the first friend who will listen. They will hug you while you cry with the realistic sadness of your past in stubborn pessimism for the moment. All they can offer you is the promise of a better future. All you want is a fulfilling present.

I woke up on January first with a tiny, grey cat looking me in the face. In the next few days of being hungover I reassessed where my life was heading. It was time to start a new year.

Today, my fears are slipping away. Every day I am adhering to the trueness of my self. I am at work, wishing everyone I pass in the hall "Happy Friday" and getting excited for a holiday weekend. We are ordering a delicious lunch and I'm listening to music on my laptop. Some coworkers brought in fake moustaches and I affected a snobbish accent to go along with mine. I'm wearing my favorite outfit. My best friend and I will be hanging out tonight. The happiness of this moment that so inspired me to write about it isn't such a transient thing.

A recap of 2011 so far would be best put in saying that it got to me where I am right now.

quantity over quality

2011-06-16T15:37:00.002-04:00

The usual impulse I feel from discovering fantastic new music has been distorted by an influx of worthy albums and as such I have decided to compile a list as opposed to my customary verbose appraisal and anecdotal prose.

Terrible Things Happen by The Aislers Set
Given to me by a freelance editor I worked with.

Surf Noir by Beat Connection
Downloaded from a SoulSeek user after noticing the LCD Soundsystem reference.

Haha Sound by Broadcast
A stated influence for The Radio Dept.

In Love With Oblivion by Crystal Stilts
Saw them live at the Magic Stick. New album is even better than their debut.

Guards by Guards
Listed by last.fm as similar to Beat Connection, plus it's a free download.

It's All True by Junior Boys
Been following them since seeing them open for Caribou in 2005.

An Exaltation of Laarks by Laarks
Discovered their awesome session on Daytrotter.

Astro Coast by Surfer Blood
Was being played one day at my favorite record store, UHF Records.

Strange Weather, Isn't It? by !!!
Realized they've written some of my all-time favorite songs.

melancholy

2011-05-27T17:47:00.001-04:00

There is an undeserved happiness in melancholy.

That very personal sorrow is an admission of something better being out of reach yet a calm affirmation that everything is okay the way it is, and often the way it has been many times before. The powerful introspection of melancholy is wonderfully addressed in this article: 5 Types of Melancholy

Melancholy is a defensive response, and a powerful one at that, because it perpetuates contentment. Melancholy is not the path to growth. Melancholy keeps us from achieving our dreams by telling us that our dreams are hollow, meaningless, and that our singular reality is all we really need.

Milan Kundera writes, "Anyone whose goal is 'something higher' must expect someday to suffer Vertigo. What is Vertigo? Fear of falling? No, Vertigo is something other than fear of falling. It is the voice of the emptiness below us which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves."

This definition of "vertigo" is, in my opinion, the complimentary opposite of melancholy. It is an uncertainty in reality rather than certainty in an unreality. "Vertigo" is opening yourself to new possibilities. The terror we instinctively face it with; the tingling nervousness and rush of blood; is proof that while your dreams may not be completely realized, your time will be well spent. When you are driving to a first date, when you show your work to an admired artist, when you stand up for your own opinions, you are overcoming melancholy.

Belief in melancholy is a belief in superiority over our fellow humans. The very focused and tangible burden of melancholy is opposite the radiant and infinite possibilities of life. Through melancholy, one can wrap themselves in layers of faux-happiness and protection. It would be dangerous to stay there.

album review: Burst Apart

2011-05-15T16:53:00.002-04:00

I want to drown in this album. I imagine myself floating weightless in a black void, like the background of the album's cover. As I drift slowly and silently away from brightness, I'm left in an ethereal nothingness. Comforted and asleep. My brain has resolved to only focus on the wonderful lack of discernments it is making. I am neither hot or cold. I am neither happy nor sad. I have no one to impress. Responsibilities forgone, I am left only to the music.

The overwhelming attitude of "Burst Apart" is a vulnerable sincerity clinging steadfast to its stances from one song to the next. Anthems for the soft-spoken. A bedroom soundtrack for the magical chasm of suspended aging that is early adulthood; reserved for not getting younger or older. Do you want to plunge headlong into the future or breath deeply in the passing moments, each one longer than the last? This album inspires the latter. Its occasional aggression seems to spring from the enchanted forest of its artwork. Somewhere tangible yet distant and vague, like a childhood memory that may only be a fairy tale imagination. Its complimentary tenderness highlighted by fragile vocals and soft instrumentalism remind you that in this universe it's all the same.

Blurring the line between weight and weightlessness, what The Antlers accomplish is at once scary and satisfying. Frequent repetition has not confronted me with an urge to awake from its confines and move forward, but instead I wish to remain enrapt in the cloak and mystery of its melodies. This is not an album I expected, not only because their previous release Hospice had not affected me. It was the album's artwork that had me give The Antlers another chance. My constant expressions of gratitude, sometimes flustered and impatient, keep me tethered to the possibility that something like this could catch me off guard. Here is an example of a pleasant surprise. Here is calmness and a chance to drift somewhere outside of yourself. Perhaps to sleep, perhaps to peace.

Download "Every Night My Teeth Are Falling Out"

album review: Champ

2011-05-10T15:43:00.007-04:00

The first time I listened to “Champ” was a night after band practice where I had to return to work for several hours of footage loading and sorting. Taking control of another editor’s room, with the building practically to myself, I plugged my Macbook into the audio board and played it through the high quality speakers. After only a couple songs I was tweeting over how impressed I was by this introduction to Tokyo Police Club. Similar to the first spinning of my 2010 “album of the year” - LCD Soundsystem’s This Is Happening - I was sure I’d be playing this over and over in the coming months. Those first moments of a future favorite are magical. There's a curious awareness hanging over those introductory listens that one day you’ll have these lyrics, notes and rhythm changes memorized and yet for the time being they are still fresh and unfamiliar. When the riff of “Hands Reversed” first caught my attention, I assigned it a three-star rating in iTunes; a delineation reserved for songs I recognize, and in this case a song I knew I’d be recognizing soon.

Since that night, a CD-R copy has earned frequent rotation in my car’s stereo (as an uncommon departure from the almost constant playing of my monthly mix CDs) as well as recommendations to a few of my friends. The staccato notes and dramatic pauses of standout second track “Favourite Colour” have inspired a new song that I wrote for my band. Had this album been put out on vinyl, I would be wearing it out. I would drop it clumsily at 3:00 AM in a feeble attempt to keep my fingers on the edges. I would laugh and turn to whoever was watching me, making sure they knew that I was not upset at my accidental mistreatment. Any discernable scratches upon listening would be reminders of the great times they had supplemented. Even listening to this album from a plugged-in iPod, the nights spent in an alcoholic haze plastered with smiles would be soundtracked by laughter and the newest additions to my favorite songs.

For me, music invokes the moment a memory was made. With this album I feel a unique opportunity to affect a time I will one day look back on. That consciously choosing to put it on could elevate the impact of something as it is happening. Last week I was driving home from a first date and without even stopping to think I had swapped “Champ” into my car's stereo and was rolling down the windows. The chilly Spring air took a backseat to the haphazard keyboard noises of the album’s opener. My hand flicked toward the volume knob and turned it to the left. I remember how strange it was to see so many cars on the road that early in the morning. I remember a humidity in the air that comforted my mind, already hazy with sleepiness. I remember a warmth that was more happiness than forced air from my car's engine. I remember feeling alive and untouchable. The Summer of 2011 was already taking shape, in this late night atmosphere full of optimism. Full of music.

happy anniversary

2011-04-30T11:52:00.009-04:00

Around this time last year I was overcome with the idea to start a blog - the kind I would tell everyone about. Something I could share with the world in that "I have something to say and people should listen!" kind of way. Like Twitter. I liked that writing was something I did out of passion, not for money, and it's much better that way. The inspiration for most of my entries were my own observations, and though I tried to make my writing less diaristic and more third-party commentary, the only constant was that I wrote what I wanted people to read. Staying true to that mindset, my publishings became anecdotal retellings - wishful they were that someone would share in my heartfelt, yet intimately personal, appreciations.

But I've been posting less and less recently. Not because my brain is not churning, but maybe it's been distracted. That happens to everyone. We never stop adjusting our focus. It's humbling to know that nothing will stop. Our growth, our learning, or our love.

What have I discovered over the past year, as my bloggings have waffled between being fearless and fallible and something I scrutinized and sculpted before posting, is that the only person I need to impress is myself. The analogy of the "pieces of my life fitting into place" becomes more realistic every day, and the missing, undiscovered or otherwise warped out of usable shape segments separate themselves from the true. On improvement is where my motivation focuses and I realize how no one will help me. We are all of us alone and this is not scary. My faith is in myself, and my faults, and my ability to better myself in whatever way I want.

What I won't give up on is the poetry I feel of every moment. The resonation of music in my chest that sets my heart on fire. The fluidity of orchestrating an action that comes not from something learned but deeply understood as necessary, inexplicable to someone else and beautifully so. The impulses of individuality. The perfect follies of humanity. The endless possibilities of love.

"What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving, how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god!"

An analysis of adding 'A's to my name as depicted by turnyournameintoaface.com

2011-04-20T14:43:00.010-04:00

Seven is clearly the cutoff point.

unfinished thoughts

2011-04-19T11:19:00.002-04:00

There must be a measurable degree to which every person can allow themselves to leave things unfinished. What's truly fascinating is every individual's basis for judgement; in this case, the level of importance and the value of the effort needed to complete something half-accomplished.

Take as an example the rough drafts of blog entries I have saved on this website. Most of them are inspired ideas that fizzled before they could be expanded upon. Regardless of whether I will ever turn these into full-fledged postings, they still exist in a special state that only I am aware of. Our happiness and contentment are tested every day by these incomplete thoughts. The underlying impulse behind initiating a course of action like clicking the 'new post' button is an attempt to achieve a potential outcome: in this example, a finished entry. Along with an actualization of the initial effort comes a genuine feeling of satisfaction. While completing a piece of writing can only provide so much gratification, it is a principle that similarly applies to the infinite opportunities of our daily lives.

Tiny decisions can set in motion a chain of events that could lead to undeniable satisfaction and success. But what does it mean to leave that chain incomplete? What goal are you keeping yourself from attaining? Therein lies the kinds of questions which sit at the back of my skull every day with a lazy, misguided hand on the steering wheel. While not knowing what you want makes you a boring person, seemingly without regard for your own opinion and trust in your own judgement, being so sure of your direction in life leaves you bored. We are always learning, even when we aren't aware of it. Nothing is ever so set in stone as to be infinitely predictable. Leave yourself open to always being surprised and the chances that we are met with every day will only be as taxing as you let them. Consider them challenges, tiny little nudgings in the direction of happiness. Hardships can be energy-draining reminders of inability or generous lessons in discerning our personalities.

If thoughts mean so much, why do we leave so many of them unfinished? Is happiness the point where every thought is allowed to run its course and reach an intended outcome? Will we ever be able to answer every question we pose ourselves? Too often we look outside ourselves to provide justification of our decisions. I would never say that this is unimportant, but in the sense of self-reliance, we should be able to turn to ourselves to decide whether something is the best choice to make at a given time.

But not everything can be actualized. I will never flush out and finalize every rough draft I've ever started. Mistakes make up our world as much as sure-footed good decisions. It is up to every one of us to decide the value of devoting our effort towards something we think we want. How much incompletion we can stand before feeling incomplete. The unfairness of the world that we're willing to put up with.

I believe that there is never a right answer because everything in this world is indefinite. As they say, nothing is black and white. There are no absolutes. Even something as meaningful as my happiness is undefinable. I will never know the exact formula for attaining my own satisfaction. That uncertainty is another door to adventure: because we do not know what we are seeking, we can seek the path. Every day's potentials and problems are the life we're living. Finish whatever it is you know you should.

Qnexa

2011-04-12T12:27:00.008-04:00

Seemingly a random combination of letters, Qnexa is a weight loss pill, spawned in mad scientist fashion by combining Adipex (an appetite suppressant) and Topamax (an anti-seizure pill.) I first heard about this miracle drug at work, over the heads of my clients as they watched an interview on CNN and remarked about the pill's method of altering the taste of normally delicious foods. What better way to not want to eat chocolate than make it taste like metal?

For a few moments I sat pondering the response I knew I should make to this startling acceleration down the spiral of modern drug solutions. I thought back to my senior year of high school when I drastically reduced my eating, exercised for near an hour almost every day and, over the course of five months lost around 40 pounds. My humble nature was tested in the face of infinite congratulations from friends and family over my weight loss. As much as I publicly shrugged the praise, I felt it inside for myself. I had always known that turning to artificial means for cutting pounds would feel unnatural and wrong. This was something different. This was something I had earned. This was gratification that someone taking a pill would never get to experience.

Nowadays, my relationship with food has drastically changed. Everything I consume is addressed with an awareness that I'm proud to make part of my personality. I've faced the potential of eating nothing but the most nutritious, weight-loss-promoting foods and realized my penchants every now and then for some french fries or a half-pint of ice cream. While my adherence to healthy eating wavers now and again, I never lose the lesson I learned from knowing that my weight loss was mine alone.

For those who've succumbed to (or are thinking of) diet pills, liposuction or any of the other various, trendy "solutions" for reduced-weight body modification: there is much more accomplishment to be found in facing the problem on your own. This way of thinking applies to a lot more than weight loss. There's nothing wrong with a little pride now and again. There is something wrong with depending on science, technology and the modernization of 'health' to be a better person. Achievements aren't something you pick up at the drug store.

Naples: March 2011

2011-03-28T15:31:00.005-04:00

To make best use of the iTunes software, I have implemented a method for using the built-in star rating system. Any song I've listened to and enjoyed receives two stars. If I can recognize the song it receives three. For intros, outros, interludes and the like that I want to keep in my library, I give one star. Four stars are given to my favorite songs, ones that I could listen to almost any time. Five stars are then reserved for the cream of the crop; the songs that mean more to me than any others. The all-time favorites. To give you an idea, I have 70 five-star songs and over 800 with four.

Last Saturday I flew with my parents to visit my mom's parents in Naples, AKA the old people capital of Florida. The plane ride, most trips in my grandparent's van and about an hour every night when I walked around the community where they lived were scored by my iPod set to shuffle the playlist I'd made of my four and five-star songs. While every month I make CDs of new songs to listen to, sprinkled with old favorites and songs which have recently popped into my head, it had been far too long since I immersed myself in the music which means the most to me. I've always attributed memories to songs: the first time I heard them, notable experiences the lyrics harken to and the moods which certain melodies put me in. The good and the bad. My time in Florida was above all reflective and when, at the airport Saturday morning, walking to our terminal, I switched on my iPod I was sure I'd set in motion the vacation of mediation I'd been hoping for.

I absentmindedly agreed to a seven-thirty AM flight time when my mom was buying the tickets, not really thinking that would mean waking up somewhere around five to allow for ample time to get through security. I prided myself on traveling light: a pair of shorts, a handful of t-shirts and several books and notebooks. Alongside my shoes in the tray of personal holdings at security sat my belt, wallet, iPod and phone (email notifications intentionally turned off). This was all I wanted to have with me as I intended to spend the next five days in a state of solitude.

Our first activity upon arrival was a trip to a nearby nature preserve that I recognized from our last visit in 2005. A wooden dock extends out over the marsh and through the forest, winding back for something like half a mile and ending in forcedly-climactic setting: a pond which is almost guaranteed to provide a wild alligator sighting. I was preoccupied with several opportunities to sketch some selectively detailed drawings in my notebook. I wouldn't call myself talented when it comes to illustration, but I enjoy it all the same. This vacation was going to be about doing what I wanted, damn it! Along the path were numerous signs depicting much better representations of local flora and fauna than I was attempting. Their example of the nature of humanity was more interesting than the plant life surrounding me. That's not to say I didn't amuse myself with the possibility that we were witnessing an otter splashing in a shallow pond or touch my hands to an enormous palm tree and marvel at how long it had survived, and thought how it would surely outlive myself.

We were invited to a sermon Sunday morning in a park near downtown Naples. My parents joined them but I opted to walk to the beach on my own. It was my first time of the year in flip-flops and shorts. My weekly custom of listening to Paul Simon's Graceland was not sacrificed and made the perfect accompaniment to a cool, bright morning standing knees-deep in the Gulf of Mexico with nothing but water before me. After our Sunday rituals, the five of us had a delicious streetside brunch. That afternoon we took a trip to a local weekend flea market where I picked up a couple cheap DVDs: the fantastic Evil Dead and hopefully atrocious Frogs.

Monday we visited the Naples Zoo. I fantasized about working with animals; not particularly as a trainer (I later talked with one of the zookeepers and he remarked that the field was so competitive the likelihood of becoming one was on par with the chances of becoming a professional athlete) but simply on the grounds. The connection to nature is an obvious draw. I thought about being mindful of and appreciating the animals' natural routines. I remembered that I was supposed to be on vacation and the inclination faded as the day grew hotter.

My grandpa woke me up early Tuesday morning to go on a bike ride with him and his friends. The bike I borrowed was unlike my own, with wide handlebars and coaster brakes, though it was pleasantly tall. I regretted not wearing long sleeves as the cold air bit at my exposed arms. Our path took us down several miles of "green way" (a bike path off the main roads) and ended at Good Times diner. Seven AM wasn't an early morning for them and retirement wasn't losing them their interest in the world around us. We chatted about the conflict in Africa and the American plane that had "crashed" that morning. I regretted my ignorance of the whole situation yet sat humbly impressed by the sharp minds surrounding me. "We've got a coffee drinker, here" observed the waitress, as she poured me my third cup.

Wednesday featured a visit to the Naples Botanical Garden, probably my favorite event of the trip. After an hour or two of wandering around by myself, I found my dad and the two of us played a game of bocce ball and made friends with an egret who kept following me. I named him Roger, watched him catch a gecko and captured video of him hungrily swallowing it whole. For our last night of the vacation, we went to a Japanese steakhouse where I had promised myself to eat sushi and get a buzz from gin cocktails. We then went to the beach to watch the sunset. I found a sea turtle that had washed up on shore. As I paused in a moment of silence and wrote "R.I.P." in the sand, a couple that was walking by stopped and commented, "He's in a better place."

We arrived at the airport well before our flight time on Thursday, and after unloading our luggage at the curb I thanked my grandparents for allowing me the opportunity to relax. The sunburns would turn to tans and the responsibilities that I'd let slip away would soon be back. I was thankful that I had several days of weekend ahead of me before returning to work. I had spent my vacation thinking deeply about myself as well as my friends, and I felt anxious to talk to each one of them again. Vacations are great things, but in the end they're only temporary. Best not to get too caught up in them.

album review: Gorilla Manor

2011-03-11T14:00:00.006-05:00

Every year, when the March sun starts to shine in a preemptive-Spring sort of way, I get a natural urge to throw open windows and let myself be absorbed in the bright, albeit chilly, air. The promises of warmer weather are much deeper than a sensation on the skin. They radiate into the blood, spreading to all facets of ourselves, the abstract parts like the "soul" and "mind" even. The possibilities of longer daytimes and freedom for activities such as barefoot walks in the grass and meals taken streetside are the fibers that orchestrate the tug of our impulsions. How the desires to run, jump and even tumble safely on the ground are so deep-set as to be unquestionable.

One day this past week, while sitting alone in an out-of-the way office, I had an opportunity to put on Local Natives' Gorilla Manor. The website/magazine Paste had selected "Sun Hands" for one of their downloadable music samplers. After listening to it I quickly ear-marked it for inclusion on my March mix CD. Like a couple songs always do, it stood out above the others as a highlight and led me to wonder whether the band had made even more music to find stuck in my head.

The answer seems a promising, "yes." Though I have only listened to the full album a couple times, I can tell that many of the songs will achieve their own identity not simply alongside one fantastic track. As confidence in all facets of my life grows alongside a potential-ridden Spring, I am all the more honest when music strikes we with an impulse of appreciation. I am inspired with a familiar creativity and ideas that shine like the bright morning sun through the window. This is music that does not supplement moments, it makes them. Evidenced by all the times I've repeated "Sun Hands" on my car's CD player and absent-mindlessly sung its choruses, out loud, whether or not my roommates were home. Its subtle poetry expounds on a wide-eyed patience, with uplifting harmonies from everyone in the band rising to meet the lofty mindset it implies. But, more than that, it is thankful, an emotion which could never tire or go out of style. While the seasons will continue their unending cycle, some opportunities could be grasped, and held onto all through the warmth and the cold.

Give it a listen:

Local Naties - Sun Hands

Thought Catalog

2011-03-03T10:44:00.008-05:00

As natural as winter feels for the concept of "hibernation", it's taken me a few years to understand what that means for me, as a human. If I were a bear I'd be curled into a ball underneath tree branches in a cave somewhere, unaffected by weather reports and taunting thaws-before-the-storm. Instead, my mind fills itself with visions: replacing foliage with a blanket my great grandmother knitted and a dank floor with my nice, warm bed. Other such added amenities include a cup of coffee and good book. And, rather than spending several months confined from the outside world, I am delighted with a day or two a week.

The past two winters have seemed more laborious. In my first Ferndale apartment, an inexplicable decision to read Sons And Lovers left me disillusioned to the affects of literature. It took Kurt Vonnegut to pull me out of that regrettable rut, and happily I haven't looked back. This year, I made much more of an effort to place myself in front of a book on a regular basis. My usually hectic social schedule was trimmed in favor of "mental health nights" at home. I've read seven books since Thanksgiving, without wasting a single second on any of them. The outpouring of inspired storytelling I attribute to the summer has been curtailed in favor of a pensive approach to my thoughts; marinating ideas a little longer before sending them out into the world. Taking in outside energies and attitudes rather than expounding on my own. It's a cycle of creative growth that I'm learning to embrace rather than scorn, when January and February find me updating my blog all of nine times.

In addition to the conventional novels and collections of short stories, I have discovered some fascinating internet-based reading. If you take anything anyway from this entry, I hope that it's a bookmarking of the website Thought Catalog. The site's frequent updates provide a very provocative sampling of creative writing in the form of articles, commentaries and fictional stories. For anyone grasping for the pulse on the drug-addled, sex-driven, disaffected twenty-something culture of modern America: you'll certainly find it there. As the bottom of each page proudly declares, "You should follow Thought Catalog on Twitter".

Need a place to start? Here's a sampling of some great "instructional" essays.

How To Figure Out if You're Happy
How To Write “How To Shit on LSD”
How To Be Sober
How To Get Married in Las Vegas

The Dismemberment Plan, part 2

2011-02-22T12:08:00.002-05:00

They were smiling. I was smiling. Everyone in the crowd was smiling. Not just an expression on our faces; it was a feeling in the air, radiating from our bodies. Any band could reunite and perform a handful of sold out shows, but The Dismemberment Plan did it with so much obvious grace and pleasure that what songs or how long they played weren't factors in the equation. Travis stood at the mic to say 'hello' to everyone, and his face was absolutely beaming. Something I hadn't imagined over the years I'd been proclaiming them as my favorite band was how much fun they had playing in front of an audience. It brings a tingle to my face just picturing him standing there. He looked out at the crowd in a way that was pure appreciation. There weren't an embarrassed slew of 'thank you for coming out's or 'we're doing these shows because's, just a simple story about his nephew seeing "uncle Travis" on TV (they had perfmored on Jimmy Fallon a month earlier) before the opening keyboard notes to "Spider in the Snow".

The earthquake that sound sent down my spine is unexplainable. A band whose songs I'd listened to more than any others was performing right before my eyes. I was struck with the sort of awareness you only achieve when you realize you are experiencing something that you will never forget. I couldn't - wouldn't - stop myself from singing along. The tears that came to my eyes were a mix of awe, emotional resonation and sheer happiness. I could only akin the experience to seeing LCD Soundsystem this past October, but whereas their music specifically connected me to the summer of 2010, The Plan's impression spans my entire adult life.

Now, simply remembering that night sends a surge of excitement through my body, wishing I could live those moments again and again. I have added a piece to my life's puzzle that I never thought I would; that I wasn't even aware was on the table. I have discovered not only satisfaction, but that some of my life's possibilities are still unseen, and there for me to find.

this is awkward

2011-02-17T22:30:00.005-05:00

And by 'this' I mean life, existence, everything you have or will think, perceive and do. And by 'awkward' I mean the sensation everyone independently assigns to any feeling that is "out of the ordinary". With the accelerated demand for results in everyday life comes not only an increased awareness of what we consider "mainstream" or "well-known", but also an even greater increase in what we believe to be possible. A very moment, or thought can be felt as awkward. It would be a credit to our existence to not let the awkwardness of something overrule our potential to think, feel or act. There will always be a push and a pull. On one hand, explanations for why an impulse should be curtailed in favor of a widespread (or sometimes even a specific) understanding. On the other hand, justification for pushing the boundaries of what's reflexively accepted. No one could ever completely share their most extreme thoughts. Those awkward thoughts that are yours alone; tools for shaping your personality. How much of yourself do you want to not share for fear of being considered 'awkward'? Define yourself by defining the boundary of your own awkwardness. Don't be afraid to let someone know when you're just different. Don't be surprised when they're different too.

self-respect, courage and dignity

2011-02-16T12:59:00.001-05:00

Have you ever thought that you were the most important person alive? Of course you have, and it's true. As true as anything can possibly be, in your scope of understanding. Maybe you could believe that you are less important than some higher goal, but that would come at the expense of self-respect, courage and dignity. In writing this, my initial response is to poke holes in the thin sheet of my own thinking. Shouldn't God be the highest head on the totem pole and, when my life is slipping away before any sort of force I can exert to save myself, be the ultimate receiver of my love and devotion? To what end? Stories and blind faith can lead many, many to close their eyes and step into the light thinking they will adjust on the other side - but I am firmer in a belief that they won't. The romantic in me (who makes mixtapes and writes poetry) thinks that perhaps another person deserves better the commitment of my very life. I see this as a slightly better alternative than God, but maybe that is only because I am currently so removed from a healthy, honest relationship with another human. All of my acquaintances and loves are, in the end, self-serving. This is deeply unsettling. Maybe I feel that seeking a companionship which would evolve itself, over time, into such conventional and unconventional states as legal marriage, cohabitation, procreation, trust, sharing, etc., is the right direction to steer my life. My prose, allocation of energy, and thought processes certainly point in that direction. That attaining a selfless connection to humanity is the ultimate goal. But what about when we are comfortable in those things? What about the future? This ideal life situation that every one of us is perpetually working toward?

We never achieve that, for starters. An infinitely consistent aspect of humanity is striving for more. (This can be painful or inspirational - I opt for inspirational.) Imagine if you had everything you "want". What would you want? Happiness? No, happiness is a balance of 'want's and 'need's. Love can be both a 'want' and a 'need'. When love is viewed under the lens of 'want', it takes on a strange and unnatural form of yearning. We 'want' it in the same way that we want to hear a song or buy a new shirt. When love is addressed as a 'need', it becomes simpler, easier to define and, while perhaps not as abstract and interesting a thing, easier to welcome into daily life. But nothing is ever only one or the other. 'Need's are constantly under the scrutinous eye of desirous 'want's, while 'want's must come at the expense of some fundamental 'need's. This give and take is so inherent as to be outside of the decision making process. This is both a scary and enlightening thing - the basic elements of our simple, day-to-day living are removed from our day-to-day concerns. When so many pieces to simple contentment are in place, the deeper, more complex 'want's are addressed. And what are they? They are dangerous if not understood. For some, they are dangerous and understood. Every individual is the only one who can decide their own 'want's. You know whether with ample resources you would go to such extremes as drug use, sexual exploitation, artistic expression, etc. There are arguments to be made for trying anything once, just to know when it is not your cup of tea. We are all products of our past, and our future selves will always be the most important, as long as we have the wherewithal to care who that person will be.

So, if 'need's were somehow removed from the equation, what would our 'want's be? Therein lies our individuality. In many ways, it is that way in which we want our 'need's. The line is blurred when you zoom in close and see that every 'want' is to satisfy a grander, higher form of 'need'. Satisfying an urge fulfills a complex kind of craving for something like inner-peace. Calmness, and not in the druggy, stoned kind of way. But in an "I wanted to do this, and now I have" kind of way. On the flip side of the coin, bottling up desires can lead to a frustration that will not subside until it is eased or otherwise ignored (the latter is not recommended.) Through our life we are introduced to the infinite opportunities available to us. Some of them are uninteresting, or feel not worth the effort, while others tempt us with intrigue and excitement. The impulsions come despite a possible inherent danger or fear, and sometimes only through experience can we realize that something we wanted is something that we don't want anymore. When the dust on a tumultuous affair settles, we will be much happier to have actualized the reality of an impulse (at least as much as possible.) Some desires linger; skewed like the false memory of something being better than it was. Other times it was the timid failure to not experience something to the correct degree in the first place. Both must be faced on a frequent basis. This assessment of 'want's and 'need's gives us the opportunity to establish and exert our self-respect, courage and dignity - in my opinion the best of human traits.

why I hate Valentine's Day

2011-02-14T14:49:00.001-05:00

I hate Valentine's Day because I have this scary image of myself in the distant future: I'm married, maybe we have kids, and we live our lives, go to our jobs, and it's just so bland. And lifeless. And dull. And the kind of love that right now is the ultimate meaning to life is just not there. When Valentine's Day comes around, I buy my wife flowers, or we go to dinner, or we rent a movie, or we have sex for the first time in months, and somehow that makes up for all the other lifeless days we've been living without love. And that's the scariest thing I can think of. That love will have lost its place as an everyday feeling, something to overcome and bewilder even the most boring of moments. So, Valentine's Day has the potential to be the scariest day of my life because I could realize that I've given up, that I've succumbed to a new and terrible kind of normal. That my life doesn't mean what it used to - what it does now, that I refuse to let fade into the despair of faithlessness.

This year, I have discovered new defenses. I have new explanations for why celebrating this non-holiday might make a little bit of sense, in a sarcastic, ironic sort of way, as well as new reasons for dismissing it for folly. What I am sure of, today, is something that, above almost everything else, I hope to maintain for the rest of my life: that Valentine's Day is nothing special. That it should never be an excuse or an opportunity, just another date on the calendar.

This year, I am doing nothing that I would not do on just about any other Monday of the year: I am going to the WAB for dinner. I am going there, for the first time, with a girl that I have seen thirteen times before. She told me, last time I saw her, that we have chemistry, and I agree with her. If our attraction to each other and compatible weirdness are "science" then Valentine's Day is something more like a "religious" holiday, celebrated with a mindless trip to church, not in appreciation of the architecture or for camaraderie with fellow believers but because of a blind faith in empty words, that I just cannot partake in.

snowflakes and brimstone

2011-02-03T12:54:00.004-05:00

This Tuesday was such an exciting day. Everywhere you turned someone was saying something about the impending blizzard. It was the kind of unavoidable topic of conversation that you just had to give in and share your two cents on. Like the vuvuzelas at the 2010 World Cup. So, I bantered around clever pseudonyms for "apocalyptic" snowfall and crossed my fingers to make it out of work just at the right time to see the beginning of the storm, but not so late as to put my car in the garage with a layer of snow already on it.

My blizzard-eve timing was impeccable. The flakes were just starting to blow as I drove home and the air was full of an intangible, impending something. Driving through my neighborhood, I imagined everyone cozied inside, holding their breath, nursing some tea and, perhaps, watching television with the ones they love. I got the impression from coworkers, who did indeed expect to see me at the office the next day, that I could take a little bit of patience getting my car onto the road. I didn't think a snowplow would come down my street anytime before noon and, if we got the foot of snow that was being talked about, my car wouldn't even be able to clear the drifts. So, I made myself some popcorn and put in a movie that had been Netflixed onto my TV stand for near a month. (The movie: The Damned United, a film about English football coach Brian Clough which is well worth the time for fans of anything British or beautifully filmed and acted.) I half wanted to stay up all night and watch the snow and half wanted to sleep soundly (and without an alarm clock) with the background noise of the blizzard outside. When I turned in around midnight it seemed that wind was blowing around already accumulated snow more than there was any new precipitation. My eyes closed, in the same way they did when I was in high school, to the question of whether the next morning would present a fantastic scene of a world entrenched in white.

When I got out of bed not much later than my usual time, it appeared the Facebook-based assumptions that the weathermen had exaggerated the severity of the storm were correct. But, snow was still falling. And the flakes that continued to rain down looked like they meant business. As I made myself some coffee I decided that the next hour was best spent with Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

The concept of a snow day is something that has always fascinated me. It was also always the night before which seemed to hold the most magic. Like an unintended Friday night, I would always stay up watching television or playing video games. My younger self had simple solutions to entertaining an opportunity. The day not spent at school was never exactly "productive". For the most part, it meant playing in the massive amount of snow which had been the cause of the artificial weekend. Nowadays, the thought of a free day off of work was too much to get out of my head, and I had contemplated using a vacation day simply to enjoy the communal feeling that so many of my friends were experiencing as their classes or places of work were closed. I was needed at work the next day, though. Given only a few extra hours lenience to get my car out of the driveway, I milked my morning at home for all that I could. I made myself french toast and sausage, listened to some of my favorite relaxed morning songs and watched out the window as enormous flakes continued to pile themselves onto my front lawn. I saw no point in trying to clear my driveway just yet. There was so much more enjoyment to drink in and glasses of coffee and orange juice, though necessary, were not enough.

everyone has defined everythingin every way

2011-01-27T15:55:00.002-05:00

This piece of prose was originally posted in my previous internet-based writing receptacle. I stumbled upon it during some Twitter-induced reminiscing and thought it was worth sharing here. Maybe I am re-blogging due to writer's block. Maybe I'm just preoccupied.

Everyone has defined everything in every way. Look hard enough and you can find the words you want to hear. It is possible and dangerous to make your favorite songs seem relevant. You're only fooling yourself that you are incapable of making your own meaning. We can all wield a special kind of self-focus that generously shares with the world what we're thinking. We are all poets, and every moment is another chance to stand by what we really feel. Open up your heart: you will not be afraid of what you find.

Toronto

2011-01-22T09:27:00.006-05:00

TAPE - A spire

You're in Toronto. You've never been there before, and have just arrived by train. As you're walking through the station, surrounded by so many people you have never met, there is an excitement that blurs the line almost into fear. You have a backpack of carry-on and a suitcase rolling behind you. The majesty of the building you're in cannot hold you. You know it is time to venture outside into the city.

The air hits you with a wall of brightness. The white of winter and midday sunshine overcomes you more than the cold, until a gust of wind perhaps. The city surrounds you. Above you, around you and below you are thoughts and ideas. Architecture and design, people's clothing, the cars on the street, culture. So much has led to the creation of this one moment, passive to so many that you could not, standing there, understand. You are overwhelmed with everything before you, and your feet have decided it was best to walk you forward step by step further into the city. You came to Toronto to do anything you wanted, but now you face an appreciation that you are unsure of how to express. You are inspired in a way that you can't explain. Not five minutes outside and it is already more than you can take.

book review: The Girl on the Fridge

2011-01-17T11:28:00.004-05:00

A huge part of decorating my house was finding a place for all of my "entertainment property" - books, music and movies. What I needed was a bookshelf, something with several tiers where I could separate my collected media for convenient access and attractive display, but my discriminating eye couldn't find the right one at a store. So, like I had done previously with a TV stand and several picture frames, I enlisted the help of my dad, who used to be a carpenter. That was until emphysema made it impossible for him to work in such a dusty enviornment as a workshop. Still, our garage is filled with pieces of scrap wood and every power tool you can think of. Once the rest of the furniture had been situated in my living room, I sat down with a pencil and started graphing out the designs for the perfect bookshelf.

Maneuvered carefully through the front door, the six-and-a-half foot monstrosity fit snuggly in the corner next to the couch. Even before being filled, this was not a bookshelf to be messed with. The thing was taller than me, and as it sat there staring over my head, I felt that I hadn't gained a piece of furniture as a much as a roommate. For a few days I would pause and say "hi" whenever I passed it on my way out the door.

The top, short shelf was sized for CDs and the second for DVDs. The third shelf down I reserved for paperback books and the fourth for hardcovers. Below that, my collection of growler bottles from the local breweries I'd visited, and the bottom was for various magazines and board games. For a little while, the two middle shelves weren't quite full, and I spent that summer cruising garage sales for classic reads that I'd always felt belonged on a shelf as well as on my list of "have reads". Walden and The Great Gatsby didn't intrigue me quite like Kurt Vonnegut and David Sedaris, though. When I realized that my real enjoyment came from modern literature, I enlisted the help of my friends to find more exciting reads. One such recommendation was Etgar Keret, and my discovery of his work came recently when, pressed for Christmas gift ideas, I gave my mom the names of some books from my bucket list.

The Girl on the Fridge didn't sit on my enormous bookshelf nearly as long as The Iliad or 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea have. When I finished Pride and Prejudice, which I had been reading since before Thanksgiving, I picked it up the following morning. A mutual friend of the guy who'd first suggested it to me had recently related how he couldn't put it down. Looking for such an experience, over my morning coffee I started on a discovery that opened my eyes way better than the caffeine ever could. I knew I would have this read within a week.

Describing Keret's stories seems silly, as they are so short (many of them only a couple pages) that anyone who's read them would simply proclaim, "read them yourself!" The power that Keret wields so expertly is that he says a lot with a little. The stores in The Girl on the Fridge are absurd depictions of moments. Practically poignant and shockingly strange, each one is a tiny little adventure into the imagination of a true modern man. They will elicit a personal connection while simultaneously tapping into your ability to visualize the unfamiliar and outlandish, causing you to question, "is this okay?", but never whether to turn to the next page.

growth

2011-01-06T13:55:00.003-05:00

Our calendars are another year older and so am I. Having a birthday so close to the beginning of the year, acknowledging this time as one for recognizing growth is unavoidable. But, like Valentine's Day, why should certain mindsets and emotions be reserved for particular dates?

I've been growing over the past year as much as I am sitting here and writing about it. Perhaps more so, because it was happening independently from my conscious thought. Too often an awareness of something hinders its influence. Our culture is one of control. Everyone wants to have authority over their own happiness, but more often than not we are unqualified to be completely in command of something so fallible. Instead of believing that we have the power to shape our contentment, we should believe that we don't need to wield that power so absolutely.

But there's a difference between letting go and giving up. Stand up for something you believe in. Take a chance, if it could lead to something that you want. That's how to take control of your own happiness. No one is ever without the ability to instigate the change they wish to see in themself. The only way to get anywhere is to know where you want to be. Of course, then you have to get moving. You're not going to get anything by just sitting there.

So, there's another year behind me. I usually feel my age well before the date of my birth. Maybe that's the result of trying too hard to get somewhere, before being sure if it's the direction I want to head in. It's never too late to change your aim, though.

top ten albums of 2010

2011-01-02T19:58:00.003-05:00

On the Sunday at the end of a much appreciated ten day vacation, I decided to have a marathon listening of my top ten albums from 2010. This will of course not include any albums that I didn't give a good listen to during the year. I didn't try to fit anything in for the sole purpose of being on my list.

10. Broken Social Scene - Forgiveness Rock Record

One of the best things about this record how variable the energy is from track to track. The multi-instrumentalism they are known for shines without being overwhelming. Guest vocalists only add to the feeling that this album could be a collection of many different bands, if it weren't unmistakably Broken Social Scene.

standout track: "Texico Bitches"

9. Rogue Wave - Permalight

Whenever I tell someone about Rogue Wave, I feel the need to include the story of events that preceded this album's release. Zach Rogue suffered a slipped disc in his neck which paralyzed him for several months. After recovering, he wanted to make a "dance record" - something to move to. With a history in heartfelt indie-folk, this album is a bit of a departure. They adapt to this new style with flying colors while still hearkening to their roots in muted melodies.

standout track: "Stars and Stripes"

8. Caribou - Swim

The mechanical preciseness of Dan Snaith's early records has given way to an organic presentation of evolving electronic rhythms. These songs serve as an excellent backdrop or an engaging experience of instrumental additions and subtractions that keeps you guessing what will come next.

standout track: "Leave House"

7. The Radio Dept. - Clinging to a Scheme

The Radio Dept. is one of those groups that I discovered and couldn't believe I had gone so long without hearing. Right up my alley with a combination of electronic elements in an indie rock package complete with obscure pop hooks. Effected vocals are mixed perfectly with the flowing instrumentalism. These are the kinds of songs that are easy to get lost in.

Standout track: "Heaven's On Fire"

6. The Go Find - Everybody Knows It's Gonna Happen Only Not Tonight

Another example of an indie rock band making the most of electronic flourishes, The Go Find is one of the bands I was most excited to see release an album this year. On the first listen, before any of the songs really sunk in I knew I was listening to a solid album that would only grow on me. The mood is wonderfully engrossing with a slightly dark edge. This is the kind of band I would love to play in.

standout track: "It's Automatic"

5. Bars of Gold - Of Gold

It only took seeing them live once to know that Bars of Gold was something special. A hybrid of two bands I never really got into - Bear Vs. Shark and Wildcatting - this band is much more than the sum of its parts. The energy they perform with is something I haven't witnessed before and can only imagine it being similar to what it was like to see Rites of Spring in 1985, with passion bursting from every note and lyric.

standout tracks: "Heaven Has a Heater", "Cannibals"

4. Spoon - Transference

One of my friends once described Spoon as the "comfort food" of music and while at the start of 2010 they were a band I knew but wasn't too crazy about, I now agree with that statement whole-heartedly. This year Spoon became one of my favorite bands, and Transference was only an addition to my discovery of all of their albums. Seeing them live in March was one of the highlights of my year. The formula Spoon has adopted for making solid music is something that hopefully will stand strong for years to come.

standout tracks: "Mystery Zone", "Written in Reverse"

3. Menomena - Mines

This album took me by surprise. What started out as a pleasant background of agreeable songs became melodies and lyrical passages which got stuck in my head for days on end. This album gets better with every listen, as I keep discovering new facets of each song's composition. This is an incredibly mature album, in its poetic imagery and instrumental confidence. An unexpected find to say the least, this is perhaps my favorite lesser-known album to tell people about.

standout tracks: "Dirty Cartoons", "Tithe"

2. The Russian Futurists - The Weight's on the Wheels

The high placement of this album has a lot to do with an affinity I have for Matthew Adam Hart. His previous albums have all touched me as the honest outpouring of one man's heart, soul and ideas in musical form. The relationship issues he addresses are incredibly real and his delivery is at the same time fallible and confident. It has been five years since the last Russian Futurists record, and when I discovered it was available, I bought it from iTunes that moment. The first and most obvious difference between this album and previous ones is its production quality. The lo-fi sound of his earlier works is what gave them so much character, but Matt's songs hold up well to a scrutinizing attention to detail. This album feels like the product of five years of work and I am happy to tell everyone I know that they should listen to it.

standout tracks: "Hoeing Weeds Sowing Seeds", "Golden Years", "To Be Honest"

1. LCD Soundsystem - This Is Happening

I think I knew this album was going to become one of my all-time favorites before I barely started listening to it. The events that followed the first time I played it in my car, right around the same time I started this blog, as Spring was fading into Summer, all feel like dominoes that had been set up at this album's first play. I embraced the changes that came at me, sometimes reluctantly but with open eyes. 2010 has been a tumultuous year for me, and turning to this album brought me peace of mind when I couldn't find it inside myself. Lyrics that are completely self-aware - of bad and difficult decisions, of the culture it simultaneously stands over and depends on and of life on a grander scale. This year was defined by the numerous nights where I simply set this album on repeat and knew that I was doing the right thing - that my life was indeed happening - that I was in control.

I had my first and possibly only opportunity to see LCD Soundsystem play in October and it will be awhile before I attend a better concert. The day after I ordered myself a vinyl copy of This Is Happening and spent an evening hunkered over my record player poring over the lyrics sheet. Every phrase felt like a mantra of wisdom, acceptance and growth. It had been years since I felt such a true connection with music and I don't take the thought that this album changed my life lightly. For something to have such a profound effect on me gives me hope for the future. This album may be what "is happening", but now it's time for what's next.

standout tracks: "I Can Change", "You Wanted A Hit", "Pow Pow", "Home"

2010

2010-12-30T14:59:00.001-05:00

The year I'm not done with but need to put behind me. The year I will never forget and won't always want to remember. The year I could've done better. The year I could've done worse. The year I started playing in a band. The year I started collecting records. The year I had life-changing experiences. The year I don't expect anyone to understand. The year I never saw coming.

Another year I got older.

Homestar Runner

2010-12-21T16:32:00.001-05:00

Internet fads come and go. Some are short-lived and others linger like the smell of something rotten and forgotten in the back of the fridge. Either way, they are an undeniable facet of popular culture that you're either in on or left scratching your head at. That moment of realization that someone else shares an appreciation for some stupid cartoon ("WTF mate?" anyone?) can be a moment of indescribable harmony. And that's something we're all searching for. Why do you think Daniel Tosh is so popular?

I was probably one of the last people in my grade to get the internet at his house. With its arrival I stopped spending time at the library harassing my friends on Instant Messenger and began doing so from the comfort of my parent's living room. One day, a guy in my Algebra class told me about Homestarrunner.com. Before YouTube and Facebook, forums and flash cartoons were the best combination of entertainment and socializing on the internet. The brand of humor on this site was right up my alley: a mix of silliness, cleverness and geekiness. The following summer involved a lot of staying up 'til 3:00 AM poring over every video on the site and posting on a Homestar forum with newfound friends from various places around the world. Our screen names and avatars became as recognizable as our real-life friends. It was the humor of the cartoons that brought us together, but it was our personalities that cemented the bond. Secrets were shared, infatuations were formed and awkward phone conversations were had. Above the kitschy reality of establishing a camaraderie without actually meeting, this forum was an important vehicle in my social maturity - for better or worse.

The cartoons on Homestar Runner likewise became important building blocks. Imitation of their comical stylings helped me to embrace my own sense of humor. When frequenting the website became a thing of the past, some of the relationships I'd established with people via the forum remained. The core group of us have moved across several forums and have established our own individual friendships. While most of us have still never met, we trust each other and value each other's opnions. Our connection as fans of the Homestar Runner website is resigned to an afterthought. Until the other day I hadn't been on the website but once or twice in the past three years.

Like that one unexpected Christmas gift that you can never predict but is always the most treasured part of the holiday season, the brothers behind Homestar Runner have presented us with a new cartoon. Whether an old fan or a new fan, or not even a fan at all, I recommend you give this a watch. If it doesn't make you laugh out loud like it did me, maybe it will at least put you in good spirits:

http://www.homestarrunner.com/xmas10.html

Happy holidays, everyone.

album review: Swim

2010-12-16T11:54:00.011-05:00

That time of year. My mind is bursting at the seams. The unrestrained outpouring of thought I attribute to the sweet summer and it's warmth has become a cautious, frigid hibernation. While I am not so overflowing, I can feel my mind still all aflutter. But what are these emotions keeping me awake at night? Where do my thoughts drift when they are content in wandering to where they please? To love, I suppose. To the undying compassion I have for... compassion. The infatuation I have with infatuation, so silly as to blind my own better knowledge. Every morning I am snapped awake by a burning flame somewhere inside my head. I cannot focus onto it and must let it run through my mind, igniting impulses of wondering. Distracting myself from the simple act of getting out of bed.

Falling down the stairs or pouring myself into a cup of coffee are the monstrous obstacles of the everyday which prohibit me from settling inside myself to possible answers. To possible peace or an unrealistic "resolution". I know that I will never be content, and that is the only way to ensure growth.

On a slow morning at work I find that I can come a little bit to terms with inklings I have of putting a thought into words. I do not take this opportunity for granted. Nor do I dismiss the obvious turn my storytelling has taken into introspective, ambiguous prose. This is me letting myself think out loud. Onto my computer screen. Sometimes typing is easier than writing. As a simple soundtrack to my composing, I have chosen Caribou's Swim.

My discovery of Caribou was strange. A couple years ago they were headlining a tour with The Russian Futurists who I'd recently fallen in love with. In preparation for their show at the Magic Stick I listened to Caribou's then-current album, The Milk of Human Kindness, though I didn't really absorb any of it. I did leave it on repeat as my friends and I left for Detroit and at the time was annoyed when they accidentally became my number one artist on Audioscrobbler. We waited near the stage in hopes that Matthew Hart would appear soon, but were instead greeted by the members of Caribou and a declaration that Matt had been held at the United States border. In such a state of dismay, I was completely unprepared for the performance that unfolded before me. Dejected, we moved to the back of the room in the middle of the set and may have even left early. Yet, several months later I gave Caribou a proper listen and put the unfortunate show behind me in favor of a new favorite band.

Over the years Caribou has kept a frequent rotation on my stereo, and I'm sure their newest effort will be on my "Best of 2010" list. As they were becoming a well-known artist in my library, I worked my way backward through their catalog. Dan Snaith's early works are metallic and specific; experiments in programming. As Caribou has grown musically, it feels as if life has sprung from an unfeeling machine. Now organic, it wields a sentient awareness of the listener and humbly replies with an evolved collection of musical thought. This morning, Swim has been an excellent inspiration. Pleasing electronic rhythms and melodies that keep my fingers typing and my mind turning. Their approach involves varied, repeating phrases. Vocals serve as another instrument, and as the song drifts along it can be difficult to not presume when the next change will come and whether it will be minimal or explosive. Similar to my own writing process, sometimes I am simply stringing words together to form a story and the next moment I am bursting with an observation, a discovery of my own growth. It is too difficult to let that moment go and not put it into writing. I'm beginning to believe that the warmth of summer can be found even in the artificial, dry heat of December, and maybe January, February and everything afterward to come.

movie review: Enter The Void

2010-12-10T19:07:00.001-05:00

I saw this movie last weekend at the Burton Theater in Detroit. It was at the end of a long day at work followed by my first evening of Christmas shopping. My roommate and his girlfriend agreed to go with me, and we met up a little beforehand at the Traffic Jam for a drink, but the line for a table was practically out the door and not a seat was to be found at the bar. Instead, we decided to head over early and make sure we had great seats. As we talked over popcorn and sodas before the movie started, I was completely unaware that I was about the spend the next two hours absolutely engrossed in a film.

One of my favorite parts of the movie was the opening credits. Attention-grabbing as hell, it is perfect preparation for the engaging experience about to unfold. Simultaneously a return to the traditional form of listing everyone involved with the picture beforehand and also the most modern and stylistic credits I've ever seen. Absolutely brilliant:

The plot itself is much better seen on screen than described. I'll just say that I was happy when I read an interview with the director where he said the second "half" of the movie is supposed to be interpreted as a drug-induced hallucination as opposed to an actual occurrence within the story. For as long as this movie drags on, I have never been so engrossed by a film. It kept me guessing the entire time through. In a good way.

Detroit Urban Craft Fair 2010

2010-12-07T11:55:00.001-05:00

Christmas time is here. Happiness and cheer - and shopping. Most people seem to regard this yearly tradition as annoying, but that's a negative attitude I've never embraced. Hopefully I never will. To the contrary, searching for the perfect gifts is one of my favorite aspects of the season. Around the beginning of December every year I get myself into the spirit with a day of wandering from shop to shop waiting for the perfect present to, well, present itself to me.

Before moving to Ferndale, my favorite location for Christmas browsing was downtown Ann Arbor. While most of the really intriguing items were far out of my price range, the atmosphere of citywide spirit was the perfect thing to put me in a holiday mood, one that carries me into the new year. In many aspects of my life, I find myself comforted by and impelled toward tradition. Rather than recreating memories from years past, I try and establish a unique experience every year, with a formula of loose rituals. For instance, ever since I was a child I would go out with my dad on the morning after Thanksgiving for the "Black Friday" sales and, though they are scarcer these days, the early bird giveaways. In recent years, I've had to venture out on my own. Whether with a particular item in mind or simply to grab a coffee and soak in the "official" start to the Christmas season (official, at least, in my mind.) Taking holidays one at a time, once Thanksgiving is behind us I find myself entrenched in Christmas. Setting out decorations, sprinkling my playlists with holiday songs, lighting pine-scented candles and planning my shopping.

By the first week of December I usually have a decent idea of what/who to shop for. The majority of my shopping being for my parents, I still find myself quick to get small gifts for friends when the inspiration strikes. This year I started my shopping on a Saturday after a short day at work. The sun was beginning to set and I flipped my radio station to 100.3 WNIC and headed towards a number of department stores for some brand name buys. Not the most exciting part of the shopping experience, there is still a tangible Christmas spirit to be found at chain stores. When I worked at a grocery store through the holiday season, I felt a strange blend of resentment toward an increased number of shoppers and joy in the season and doing whatever I could to reinforce whatever holiday spirit I perceived in my customers. Now, finding myself the patron rather than vendor, I try and recognize the feelings of the employees having to deal with crazy shoppers and heightened stress. I like to think that every "Happy Holidays" keeps up their seasonal cheer.

Day two of holiday shopping was highlighted by this year's Detroit Urban Craft fair, being held for the first time over two days and at the Fillmore. I attended the DUCF last year when it was at the Majestic Theater and enjoyed a couple of surprise ideas for gifts. This year, I recognized many of the same vendors not only from last year's DUCF but also the DIY Street Fair held in Ferndale. Unsure of how the new venue would compliment the shopping experience, I was delighted to find that the multiple tiers of the Fillmore provided "aisles" for browsing, which kept a nice flow of traffic but also allowed for people to stop for a while at different booths. There were so many great handmade wares that I ended up buying more for myself than gifts for others, including a calendar from one of my favorite artists Sloe Gin Fizz and a print from Frizzelstix. I did allow my ritual open-minded browsing and could've easily spent all of my afternoon (and money) there.

After a couple more stops around Detroit, Royal Oak and Ferndale I returned home and baked some macaroni and cheese. I've been perfecting a recipe for a few months now, and this one was the best so far. My roommate was watching Elf as I joined him in the living room to begin my Christmas wrapping, another tradition which holds a special place in my heart. When the movie was over we listened to the new Russian Futurist's album, The Weight's On the Wheels. Something about Matthew Adam Hart's music has a wintry, holiday quality to it. This latecomer to my mental list of best albums of 2010 was a perfect accompaniment to an evening of embracing the Christmas spirit with my two best friends. Of course, I couldn't wrap their presents in front of them. I'll have to do that another day - there's still a lot of the Christmas season left to go.

entr'acte

2010-12-02T17:16:00.001-05:00

Time off, Thanksgiving and a return to busy days at work has kept me from updating in a while. One of these days I'm going to compose something other than an excuse. Until then, here's an awesome video clip from this week's b-movie selection, Deadly Friend:

December 2010 mix: important discoveries

2010-12-01T09:30:00.000-05:00

1. The National - Lit Up
2. The Go Find - It's Automatic
3. XTC - That's Really Super, Supergirl
4. Joel Plaskett - You Let Me Down
5. Wilco - Please Be Patient With Me
6. Electric President - We Will Walk Through Walls
7. Reverie Sound Revue - May Be First May Be Second
8. Sisters of Your Sunshine Vapor - Spaceman Blues
9. Menomena - Tithe
10. The Radio Dept. - A Token Of Gratitude
11. Life Without Buildings - Let's Get Out
12. Spoon - Out Go the Lights
13. The Russian Futurists - To Be Honest
14. Yeasayer - Madder Red
15. Tapes 'n Tapes - Just Drums
16. Q And Not U - We Heart Our Hive
17. Vampire Weekend - I Stand Corrected
18. Taken By Trees - Greyest Love of All
19. Her Space Holiday - My Girlfriend's Boyfriend
20. The Futureheads - Trying Not To Think About Time
21. Love-Cars - Lucky You

living room DJ

2010-11-23T19:32:00.001-05:00

Today I started a six day holiday. My work gave me Thanksgiving and the day after off and I used vacation time to take off Tuesday and Wednesday as well. Monday wasn't very busy, so I was able to finish the DVD I'd been working on of my friend's wedding. That night I joined my roommates for dinner at the WAB and a trip to Meijer.

I woke up this morning around my usual time and lazily climbed out of bed about half an hour later. My morning consisted of listening to records, doing dishes and brainstorming ideas for a comic I might start, if I can develop some drawing skills. I was more than a little inspired by an awesome webcomic that I only recently discovered: Hark! A Vagrant.

My mom came over around noon to pick up the turkey that my work gave me and the two of us went out for lunch. She drove us to Inn Season Cafe in Royal Oak and afterward I walked around town for a little while to do some shopping. First I stopped by the Salvation Army where I contemplated buying a sweater as well as a couch which I figured was probably a little too big to fit in the corner of my bedroom. I ended up buying neither. Next I stopped by UHF records where I finally took the time to browse all of their 45s but didn't find any that I wanted to get. My only purchase was another XTC album which I hadn't heard before and (correctly) assumed that I would enjoy when I got home and put it on. Last time it was Skylarking, this time it was Black Sea. Before grabbing a latte and making the long walk home, I stopped by The Royal Oak Music Theater and picked up tickets for my roommates and I to see The Decemberists concert in February.

As my first day of vacation is coming to a close, I'm sitting on my couch playing living room DJ. About an hour ago one of my roommates came home and started making guacamole for movie night tonight. I told him he cold play some music in hopes that he'd finish up the other half of the dishes that needed cleaning. After two songs he said he was done so I grabbed my iPod and started an on-the-spot playlist which has allowed me an opportunity to play a wide assortment of songs, segueing them together as best I could. Some have been recent favorites, some I hadn't heard in a while and only needed this opportunity to listen to. Around 8:00 a bunch of our friends and coming over to watch The Room, which is perhaps the most hilariously terrible movie ever made. Maybe tomorrow I'll try and put together a review of just how gut-wrenchingly funny it is, or maybe I'll just relax.

movie review: The Neverending Story

2010-11-18T17:16:00.004-05:00

I saw the movie Labryinth for the first time on Tuesday. As a (not-so-) b-movie night selection, the experience consisted of delicious snacks and frequently impersonating Jermaine from Flight of the Conchord's own impression of "1986 David Bowie". Afterward, we reminisced about other movies from our childhood, and one of my favorites that was brought up was The Neverending Story, so I asked my friend if I could borrow her copy.

While I never exactly felt a connection with Bastian, the movie struck a chord with me when I was younger. When I watched it last night, I found myself remembering a great many moments from the film. In a new context of adulthood, the film made a lot more sense... in a storybook kind of way.

First of all, when we were watching Labryinth as well as watching this movie, I kept thinking that in the 1980s movie-making must have been an entirely different art form. I know I'm not the first to lament over the exhaustive use of special effects nowadays, but I'm starting to notice for the first time how much more involved and elaborate sets and costumes were in the days before computers. I can only imagine the time and energy it took to create the kind of fantastic scenes in both of these movies, and in many more. That kind of dedication just isn't there today. The process is so demanding of an instant product that the heart and soul is gone. What it would have been like to work in an industry where time isn't so suppressing.

On another note, the scene where Artax sinks into the swamp has got to be the saddest in any movie. The foolish/brave/effeminate portrayal of Atreyu is pretty great as well (not the mention the coolest name for a hero.) I remember wanting my own luck dragon like Falkor, and also being creeped out by what looked like bubble wrap on his back. Probably not that comfortable to ride on. When I was younger, the confrontation with Gmork was a little more terrifying. Now that I'm older I have to laugh at their "fight" which is basically just him jumping on Atreyu's conveniently-shaped-for-stabbing rock and dying.

Another thing I never really caught onto was the moral of the story: that dreams and wishes are necessary for keeping our imagination alive. It makes a lot more sense to me now, but I found myself more intrigued by the art direction and musical score. I've been whistling the theme song all day. Also, I never really heard what Bastian was saying when he was supposed to rename the Empress and shouts of the the attic window. According to Wikipedia he says "Moonchild".

The Dismemberment Plan

2010-11-12T20:50:00.003-05:00

For the last three or four years, whenever someone has asked me who my favorite band is, I answered: The Dismemberment Plan. In reality, choosing a favorite band is one of those impossible decisions to make because personal tastes are ever-evolving and you can never really absorb the vast amount of music in the world. Regardless, such an on-the-spot question is a great yardstick for measuring someone's personality, and my answer has been cleverly composed. To the follow up, "Why are they your favorite band?", I usually note that in their four album career, there is a lot of musical diversity to be found. What better way to answer a question designed to distill specific information than with a vague yet comprehensive answer?

I honestly don't remember how I first discovered The Dismemberment Plan. Somehow they ended up downloaded on my computer and eventually on an mp3 CD-R which spent a lot of time in my car's stereo receiver. Their fourth album, Change, was the first one that I listened to. Driving to Ann Arbor to meet up with some friends, I started flipping through songs I hadn't listened to yet and came across "Time Bomb". I was instantly hooked. From there it was like discovering a whole new world. At the time I was working mornings at a golf course, and would often spend an hour every day driving a specialized cart around the driving range to pick up balls. Accompanied by a portable CD player, I would milk this time listening to their songs on repeat. With every new discovery came strong feelings of "How have I not heard this before?" and "Thankfully, I never have to be without this again". So many of their songs are like four-minute stories. They create a world and welcome you in with detail and feeling, almost tangible. Before long I had decided that I needed to own their catalog as physical copies. I took a handful of old CDs from my middle school days to Wazoo records in Ann Arbor and traded them in: a dedication to my maturing tastes.

After graduating high school, moving in and subsequently breaking up with my first girlfriend, settling into life on my own and moving to a new town, The Dismemberment Plan became a sort of anchor in my life. Music has always been one of the most important things to me, and a standby favorite was comforting. Recently I realized that they had fallen out of frequent rotation in my listening habits, so I decided to revisit all of The Plan's albums. In doing so, I observed that each album is respectably like the four seasons. As someone who believes in the natural differences in energies throughout the year, this only reinforces their position as my favorite band.

The perfect first album, "!" is angry and fun. Every time I listen to it, I imagine these guys staying up 'til all hours of the night, to quote the linear notes, "working on their time changes". Most songs seem to have two parts: a first which most of the song is built around, and a second which explodes into an amazing groove of steady rhythm. The album is a collection of so many amazing moments. Going on about the specifics would be futile. If you like aggressive yet self-aware post punk, this album is a standout. And that's not even what The Plan is known for.

Somehow their second album is their quintessential sound without containing the majority of their material. The Dismemberment Plan Is Terrified is one of the most diverse and cohesive CDs I have ever heard, a true "Summer" in terms of creative expression. Some songs can only be defined as quirky or strange, while others are simple, catchy nuggets of pop rock charm. What I picked up recently was that certain parts of this album foretell the direction the band is branching into. Particularly, the guitar towards the end of "This Is The Life". At the end of the song I half expect it to segue into a track from their final album. The sound here is simultaneously all over the map and yet unmistakeably The Dismemberment Plan.

Where ...Is Terrified is a tour de force of talents, Emergency & I is more of a complete album. They have settled into a sound and here it is allowed to stretch its legs. While the sound dips and rises in terms of loudness and speed, they have the same certain something that can only come from a fully formed and working band.

The Winter of The Plan's career, Change is the most real. It is also the weakest. Not in terms of sound or strength of the songs, but in it's attitude. Many of the songs are filled with confusion, regret and surrender. What this album is not is fake. It does not lie to you, and if you are willing to not take advantage of it's vulnerability, it will reward you with some of the most beautiful sounds you will ever hear. The realism in every song is unavoidable. Its place in my record collection is without question.

Having just undergone a year's worth of living in the form of musical appreciation, I feel at least a little more prepared to face the tomorrows standing in front of me. Where I've found that my attitudes and feelings fluctuate through the seasons, embracing a year's worth of emotion at any time can do a world of good. I can't pretend to assume that anyone will take from The Dismemberment Plan's music what I do, but I do believe that each of us can all tap into something equally significant. Take root in your opinions and be honest with yourself. When someone asks you what your favorite band is, be prepared, and be satisfied with your answer.

a day off

2010-11-03T15:18:00.002-04:00

For most of October I was working long days, twelve of them over ten hours. This isn't me complaining. I've had this job long enough to know that it comes with the territory. However, for the last couple years, living in Ferndale, I made a ritual out of taking time off of work during the month of October to take a long walk to Royal Oak, grab a cup of coffee, and get in some good pondering. Twice last month I tried to arrange such a day, but my work schedule just wouldn't allow it. Finally, that day came for me yesterday.

Monday night was band practice. Our first show to which we'll be inviting our friends and family is this coming Friday. We played an open mic night a couple weeks ago to about a dozen people and have since added a new song and learned a cover of Stereolab's "French Disko". Anxious to be really tight for the show, we've been practicing twice a week.

Tuesday I slept in until around ten and when I finally made it out of the house around two it was to get something for lunch and, on an impulse, a copy of David Sedaris's Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim. Once back home I took a walk over to my local polling place to pick up an "I voted" sticker. Wanting to take full advantage of the gorgeous day and accompanied by my newly burned November mix I decided for a short, impromptu walk. My destination ended up being Hybrid Moments, the record/clothing store that just opened up on Woodward. In hopes of scoring a New Order record, the guy working there turned me onto the band Crystal Stilts who he described as "surf rock with New Order vocals". You can hear a couple of their songs here. They're very good.

Deciding to take the day off had been kind of a spontaneous decision. The editor who I had been working with the past week was also taking the day off, and we were gearing up for a long weekend of working ahead. What it turned into was really a day of rest. There were at least two moments, lying on my couch drinking coffee and watching a movie, and again after voting, where I couldn't help but smile at the sense of peace I felt which seemed to have been evading me for some time. Part of that was not being at work, but it was more about the color of the trees and the crisp November air.

Devil's Night

2010-11-01T11:58:00.005-04:00

"Oh yeah, I'm going to drive my car

Oh yeah, I'm going to go real far."

I first heard the opening lines to Guided By Voice's "Quality of Armor" back in 2006 or something when a forum that I had been frequenting since high school did a mix CD trade and one particularly cool guy added this song to his tracklist. This was back before I kept my music neatly organized in iTunes and any miscellaneous songs were stored together in their own folder. The file name stood out, and I recognized it more so than the band, whose name was among many which my internet friends had told me I would enjoy. And every now and then I'd try and remember what this song sounded like; and I would play this short little snippet of a song and I would enjoy it.

Flash forward to earlier this year when, stuck at work for the better part of January, on the recommendation of my then girlfriend I downloaded all of GBV's full-length albums. For anyone unfamiliar with this incredibly prolific band, that's sixteen albums in their seventeen year career. She's a big fan of them, and I gave her a binder of CD-R copies of each album. I also burned, for myself, their greatest hits compilation, Human Amusements at Hourly Rates. Since then most of my knowledge of GBV has been from listening to that album. For a band with 300+ songs, it's hard to feel like you really know their material but over time I've come to really love a select handful of their songs.

A few months ago I got word that GBV was reuniting for a short tour, and would be playing Detroit on October 30th. Without hesitating I texted my ex to tell her about the show. She's not the kind of girl who likes making plans, but I knew that she would want to go and wanted very much myself to go with her.

Saturday she came over to my house and made herself a Halloween costume to wear to the show. Basically that meant painting a white shirt with fake blood that was leftover from my Devil's Night party last year. I had my own similarly splattered t-shirt which I wore. Surprisingly, there were few other people at the show dressed up. We arrived there just as The Love Language was ending their set and grabbed a couple drinks and found a great spot in the middle of the crowd. After a team of roadies brought out five-foot long setlists and a stack of towels, they turned on a neon sign hanging high above the stage with the lyrics to one of their best songs, "A Salty Salute":

"C'mon, C'mon..."

Out came the man himself, Robert Pollard, the brains behind this musical operation. It was clear from the already 1/4 empty bottle of José Cuervo he was carrying what direction the show was going to take. Obviously, the guys in the band were old. Bob was turning fifty-three at midnight, and I kinda hope he was drinking so much out of celebration, but I have a bad feeling it's a daily thing for him. That doesn't take away from how rock 'n roll the show was. Bob can still high-kick, that's for sure. Two hours/thirty-plus songs later, they had already done three encores when our backs started to be more important than seeing another slurred song. They had already played the songs we wanted to hear, and the ones I recognized were amazing.

Yes, those guys were smoking the entire time. So were their roadies. I guess if anyone deserves the privilege, they are sure high on the list.

On the drive back to Ferndale, we decided to stop by the WAB for a nightcap and to meet up with my friend's friend who was desperate for an excuse to leave the Halloween party she was at. We sat at the back corner of the bar and remarked about how good it was to see GBV live before (knock on wood) one of them clocks out a little too early. Our friend showed up dressed in a slutty mad hatter costume and lamented to us about the bad vibes she had gotten from an old high school friend who was hosting the party. We conversed for a while about memories from our childhood, and the strangest part of the evening was when a guy came over to ask the girl about her costume and literally defined himself as creepy. Lest we believe there was anything but creeps out in Detroit that night.

November 2010 mix: new skin

2010-11-01T10:00:00.013-04:00

1. Joan of Arc - A Half-Deaf Girl Named Echo
2. Lackthereof - Last November
3. Holiday Shores - Edge of Our Lives
4. Wolf Parade - Shine A Light
5. Reptar - Houseboat Babies
6. Imaginary Baseball League - Don't Call At All
7. Guided By Voices - My Kind of Soldier
8. Hall & Oates - Head Above Water
9. Islands - Jogging Gorgeous Summer
10. Descendents - Silly Girl
11. Jets To Brazil - You're the One I Want
12. New Order - The Village
13. Alan Price - Look Over Your Shoulder
14. Halloween, Alaska - Love is Stronger Than Pride (Sade cover)
15. American Football - Never Meant
16. Criteria - Rescue Rescue
17. Cut Off Your Hands - Still Fond
18. Okkervil River - A Hand to Take Hold of the Scene
19. Elvis Costello - (I Don't Want to Go to) Chelsea
20. LCD Soundsystem - Great Release

LCD Soundsystem, I Love You But You're Freaking Me Out

2010-10-28T16:46:00.001-04:00

So, of course, I was rushing to get out of work last night around seven-thirty, desperately trying to make it to the Fillmore before Hot Chip started their set. LCD Soundsystem's twitter feed had announced a few hours earlier:

"warning!!!! tonite is early!!! get there before hot chip starts at 7:30! (what's up, detroit?? why so early?)"

After frantically trying to find a parking space, realizing I forgot my wallet and would have to run back to my car and then getting thoroughly searched by security, I cut my way through the crowd to see Hot Chip playing the opening to "And I Was A Boy From School". I watched them for a couple songs until they played one I didn't recognize from their latest album and went to the bar for a Jack and soda. I made my way back down to the front where I had a chance to relax and settle in for what was about to be one of the greatest nights of my life.

2010 will always be the year that I put This Is Happening on repeat as a soundtrack to my life. Whether it was intently deciphering the lyrics of "I Can Change" and "Home", or driving around blaring the bass line of "Pow Pow" or only catching in the silences of conversation the melodies of the likes of "All I Want", "You Wanted A Hit" or, really, any part of the album. Front to back this is absolutely one of the best pieces of music ever produced. Maybe it's just that I'm growing into life as an adult and realizing how really real my reality is, but nothing will ever take away from me the sheer emotion I feel listening to this album.

They started their set, as I knew they would, with "Dance Yrself Clean", the opening track from This Is Happening. A fight broke out behind me during the opening of the song, and I did my part to restrain one of the guys and repeat to him, "It's okay, it's okay." This was not the atmosphere for violence. Everyone was joining in on the "Ahhhs" as the song built and built until the eventual release as the song, and the concert itself, kicked into gear. The energy was unbelievable. There was nowhere else I'd rather be.

I was surprised that they only played five songs from This Is Happening. Each one brought tears to my eyes and I felt an incredible connection with James and his lyrics. One major part of LCD Soundsystem's genius is that the issues and emotions they address are honest and relatable. James is the quintessential self-aware hipster; steeped in a world of coolness and elitism but at the same time bored and fed up with drama. There are no other bands like LCD Soundsystem, and there never will be. Who else can make a chorus out of just repeating the word "yeah" over and over?

After "Home" ended their customary encore, I could see the band talking just off stage, and we continued to cheer for more. James came back onstage and said something (as close as I was to the stage, it was hard to hear him between songs) about how they feel weird about encores but this was the last night that the bassist from Hot Chip would be joining them, so they were going to play a special additional encore in honor of the occasion. They started to play "New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down" before James stopped again and made a statement about how "I know you want us to say 'Detroit, I love you', but that just wouldn't fit the actual song" so they weren't going to do that. It was touching and I enjoyed our special performance all the more. I couldn't fall asleep before going home and listening to the album again. And I can't answer anyone's questions of "How was the concert?" without saying it was the best I will see for a long time.

the WAB

2010-10-25T17:54:00.002-04:00

Small towns come with all sorts of staples and predictable accommodations. Ferndale: the perfect place for liberal-minded, creatively-driven twenty-somethings is no exception. Since I moved, one of my favorite things to tell people when they asked me how I liked it here was that it felt like I belonged. The free-spirited party crowd you'd come to expect needs an assortment of watering holes to fill up on the weekends. The cornerstone of Ferndale is three adjacent bars: the Woodward Avenue Brewers (WAB), the Emory and the Loving Touch. All owned by the same people, it's the WAB that feels like the real hub of the city.

My first time there was in March of 2008. On a Wednesday night I had gone with some friends to see Justice at the Royal Oak Music Theater. I was living in Farmington Hills at the time, and had taken the following two days off of work. My friends spent the night at my house and I stayed home on Thursday watching the start of March Madness. That night, my work hosted a bar night (something we used to frequently do every couple months) at the WAB. The place was packed when I got there, an upstairs of a corner building with a unique multi-tiered layout. When you arrive, to your left is a staircase which takes you to the main bar. They have a patio with a bar downstairs that's only open during the summer, but I wouldn't learn about that until later. On this night, I was overwhelmed by being at one of my first work functions, and was more than happy to do a shot with anyone and everyone. I even got tricked by one girl who gave me tequila but drank a shot of water herself. This was also right after I went vegan, and so unable to partake in most of the provided snacks, I went to the bar and ordered some black bean dip. The rest of the night consisted of knocking over a plate of chips, my first experience inside of a photo booth and my only time going to the DIA where I met a girl that I would proceed to "date" several times who never really seemed all that into me.

I can't even count the number of times I've been back since then, and if there's anything I feel comfortable losing track of, that's definitely not that worst of them. Most often I have gone there for half-off food on Monday nights, which serves as a comfortable routine to start the work week. Like Monday Night Football for the hip crowd. And Sunday nights, all of their house-brewed beers are only $2.00. I'm a firm believer in Sunday as a day of rest. Everyone uses them differently, and some people even have to work, but that doesn't change it from being a day where you want everything to be relaxed and the way you want it. Sometimes that means putting on a record or walking around my neighborhood. Often it's doing laundry and tidying up my house. It's a day to feel at home. Sometimes, in a small town, the place you want to be on a Sunday night is at the bar. Dinner with a date or a table of new friends and good conversation. Yesterday it was just me and my notebook. Two hours, two pints of vanilla porter and twenty-two pages later, my mind was much more at ease. I felt at home, when I laid down, and that's a good way to feel in a small town. It'd be much better than leaving.

motivationally speaking

2010-10-25T17:45:00.000-04:00

Make a fool of yourself over something.

Don't let it matter. Knuckle down. Do something that will make your life better. Turn it around. Make the difficult decision that's been clawing at the back of your skull. Listen to your conscience. Believe in yourself, or whatever other motivational bullshit you're expecting someone to tell you. Of course, you're too smart for that. You can see right through. No one is going to change you. But god damn it if I'm not going to try.

What you need is a clever idea thrown in the spokes of whatever you thought was working for you. A cold hard realization like a frigid wind sneaking down you collar. An unexpected turn in the road that will make you slam on the brakes and look up from your steering wheel to see me standing; "I told you so" silently rolling off my lips. Something's got to catch you off guard. You, sitting on your know-it-all throne. There's a spot you missed and they're not going to believe your lie. You'll never be comfortable with the mess you've made, and you can turn it around. You can make the effort. Good ideas aren't just stars in the night sky, brilliant and out of reach. You're more, if you only knew it.

movie review: The Shining

2010-10-23T19:54:00.001-04:00

What the fuck is up with the guy in the bear suit and why do I fall asleep every time I watch this movie?

movie review: Pontypool

2010-10-22T16:00:00.002-04:00

Watch this movie twice.

The first time I saw it was early last November at the Detroit Film Theatre. I had never been there before, but was invited along but my friend and her boyfriend. We met early and meandered around the elaborate building so I could marvel ignorantly at the vast epic architecture. I remember we went downstairs to use the ornately designed bathrooms. There was some construction blocking off an area. They must have been repairing an aging section of the ancient building; we all know Detroit needs that kind of restorative attention.

When showtime came we crammed into the far-less-legroom-than-I-require seats and waited for the main feature. The film begins with a vague and almost unintelligible radio recording. It's not the quality of the sound that makes it difficult to understand, but the subject itself. It's the story of a missing cat and a bridge in a small town; seemingly unconnected things which are brought together by coincidental facts. We are told that this concurrence of unrelated things is a phenomenon which has happened often in history before and after significant events. The meaning of this message takes repeat viewings to decipher. At the DFT, however, I could feel everyone kind of looking around wondering what we had just heard. It turns out, rather than leave us clueless, the esoteric message gave us exact the primer we required.

Frist time watchers will have this film described to them as a zombie movie of sorts, but it has nothing to do with reanimated corpses. It does however feature some of the most grippingly scary settings and terrifying scenes I have ever seen. Most notably, an eyewitness account, delivered via cell phone to a radio host while on the air, of two "people", grasped by a virus which has turned them into unthinking, feral beats, literally biting and tearing into a victim's flesh. A prime example of the "it's what you don't see that's most frightening" adage.

Of course, zombie movies are nothing new. Every year there seems to be another dozen gore-fests on the big screen or at the very least released straight to DVD. This story is something far more unique, interesting and commendable. What causes people in this film to go insane is a virus, but, as described anxiously by a doctor who clambers his way into the radio studio, not a virus in the blood or in the air but a virus in language. The english language, to be precise. The key piece of dialogue I was able to pick up on second viewing, the other night, was the doctor's use of the term "God bug." An elaborate concept to comprehend, the idea supposed is that a new kind of viral life form which lives in thoughts has taken root in certain words. When a person hears and, most importantly, understands the infected word they are sent into a frenzy. The truly scary idea that the doctor exclaims is that this virus could eventually manifest itself in a physical form. Unfortunately, the movie kind of spirals out of control from there. The studio technician becomes infected and starts hurling herself against the sound proof glass behind which the others have taken shelter. Silence and speaking in other languages takes over until the "zombies" which have overrun the small town of Pontypool, Ontario break in, seeking out victims to viscously cannibalize. In the end, all the military can do is exterminate any of the infected. Too late late is it discovered by wonderfully portrayed, semi-alcoholic radio host Grant Mazzy and his producer Sydney that by convincing yourself that one of the infected words does not mean what you think it means - reverse your understanding of the word, if you will - you can be cured. In this world, however, the solution seems to be speaking French.

Je ne parle pas Français.

movie review: Shutter Island

2010-10-18T12:04:00.003-04:00

All I had to do was watch the trailer to figure out the "twist" of this film. Usually I'm good at watching movies and not supposing what's going to happen next; letting the story play itself out for me. In fact, I think that's why I liked The Village so much. Anyway, with Shutter Island, I had the plot sketched out from the start and as I watched all of the details just fell into place. All of the main character's encounters were obviously scripted and thought-out addresses from caregivers attempting to help an insane person. Each exchange of dialogue seemed to be a necessary stopping point on his road to discovering the truth. In that regard, the movie was pretty well done. Instead of wondering what would happen next, I thought about how it would happen. But, as I said, the story was all kinds of predictable.

When I got back from giving my friend a ride home from work on Friday night, my roommate was putting together a dinner to take to his girlfriend's. I secretly applauded his romanticism and put on a couple records while browsing the internet. He toiled in the kitchen while I shopped Craiglist to find an HTC Eris. My long standing resistance to smart phones has finally cracked, and the potential to tweet, email and surf the web from anywhere has put me in the market. I didn't want something as clunky as a Droid X or Incredible, and after a little research I decided the Eris would be right up my street. Of course, I went to the Verizon store and found out that it had been discontinued. Not wanting to buy an over-priced refurbished one, I've turned to the internet in hopes of finding a good deal.

Once my roommate had left and I had the house to myself, I put on the Charlie Brown Halloween special, "It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown"; my milestone for welcoming the Halloween season. Viewing the episode as more of a piece of art, I marveled at the painted backgrounds. That, and the music that plays when Snoopy, pretending to be a World War I flying ace, makes his way "across the French countryside" are a sentimental thing to me. Moments of multimedia that will always have a place in my mind.

Shutter Island, for me, was just part of a relaxing Friday night of solitude with the remains of a bag of homemade Chex mix. At the end of a long week, sometimes you just want to crash in front of the television and think about how bad that green screened computer-generated ocean backdrop looks.

movie review: Zombi 2

2010-10-13T14:40:00.001-04:00

My friend who had first proposed the idea of a weekly movie night hosted yesterday. She hadn't been all summer because her apartment was too hot, but now that Autumn is here, we crammed in front of her television for another Tuesday night of snacks and laughter. I was glad I opted to bring a bottle of wine as opposed to my mom's homemade Chex mix, because we were practically overwhelmed with food. She had made chocolate chip pumpkin cupcakes which were an amazingly delicious, if unexpected, combination. One of her friends made guacamole, and other people brought chips, candied nuts, kettle corn, regular popcorn, doughnut holes and apple cider. Every now and then I suppose it's important to throw healthy eating habits out the window and splurge.

The evening was certainly an exercise in indulgence. We started with this jaw-dropping piece of eighties made-for-television movie wonder:

According to my friend, Halloween season doesn't start until you've watched this.

Next we stuck in a Simpson's Treehouse of Horror episode. Memories came rushing back to me of watching these over and over when I was younger. We waited a little while for late-comers and decided on a full-length movie to watch. Once we had all settled in, we started our main feature for the night: Lucio Fulci's "Zombie" (or Zombi 2, as I found out it was officially titled.) I had gone through a phase of watching Dario Argento films last year and my friend lauded this movie as being very much an "Italian horror film." While not as atmospheric and music-heavy as Argento's, there were many elements that were unmistakably Italian. I took a lot of enjoyment in the artistic camera moves and elaborately framed shots. There was a cheesy dramatic edge to every jerky zoom and abrupt cut. This wasn't exactly a B-movie, but despite it's fantastic makeup effects, we laughed our way through most of the film. Also in the vein of Italian horror were some graphic gore scenes that, for being done before 1980, were as realistic as stuff done nowadays - more believable, even, than computer generated violence. Oh yeah, and there's a scene where a zombie attacks a shark.

When the movie was wrapped up and as our crowd started to dissipate, I suggested another Treehouse of Horror episode. We unanimously decided on the one from season six, which my roommate and I had watched countless times before and had to keep from reciting the whole way through. Even though my house was only half a mile away, the night air was too cold for a comfortable walk home at the end of the night, but I did anyway.

book review: Slaughterhouse-Five

2010-10-08T16:49:00.002-04:00

One of my best friends I met only a couple years ago. Him and I would chat for hours over coffee and every time we got together I felt like it was the best use of my time to get deep into intellectual conversation with him. Like in our bantering of ideas I could find answers to figure out my life. I seem to remember, among many of his cultural references that would go over my head, that he mentioned Kurt Vonnegut and I had to admit that I had never read any of his work. While visiting another friend and browsing her bookshelf, I noticed several Vonnegut novels and she offered to let me borrow one. I went for Slaughterhouse-Five, the one I had heard so much about.

I didn't read Slaughterhouse-Five in two days like I have some of his others since this eye-opening experience. What I did feel, in the chunks of time which I devoted, too many days apart, to a chapter or two from this book, was a sense that everything I was reading was exactly the way I wanted it to be before my eyes graced the words. Each paragraph was conversational and natural. Modern and yet grounded in an infallibility that escapes most authors. The predictable and yet somehow surprising motif of "So it goes" feels like it was meant to be adapted to our everyday lives. As does Billy Pilgrim's time traveling. Whether real, crazy or simply retrospective is irrelevant. Being adducted by aliens feels as natural as the dialogue with his wife and innocent follies in World War Two. Throughout the story he interacts with characters who love him and who hate him, but he is unaffected by their frustration or praise. Billy Pilgrim is simply wandering through his life, whether from start to finish or haphazardly to different moments throughout. His calm, optimistic outlook on life in general is a work of art to discover, and when I decided to reread this novel two years after my first time, it was again unique and endearing. This time around took me less than a week, covering about a quarter of the book in each sitting. I am already imagining another winter of being curled up with a cup of tea and a novel. Anyone who's been to my house knows I have a bookshelf of "need to read"s. All the same, something feels like it will be missing until I read everything in Vonnegut's catalog.

album review: Mines

2010-10-05T10:45:00.004-04:00

Tuesday morning. Last night I imagined myself getting a solid night of eight-plus hours of sleep. Then, of course, midnight rolls around and I'm still focused on all the tiny parts of my body that just aren't comfortable enough to settle down for the evening. My band decided to start doing two practices a week as we've got our first "gig" next Monday, an open mic night at the Phoenix Cafe (if you're reading this: please don't come.) We usually wrap things up before eleven o'clock, which is late enough that afterward all I want to do is go to bed. Still, three hours of loudness in my basement seems to echo in my brain for some time before I can finally concede to rest.

When I woke up, a song that had been in my head for the past few days was prompting me with it's lyrics:

"Oh, in the morning, I stumble
my way towards the mirror
and my make up, it's light out
and I now face just what I'm made of"

It is the opening track from Menomena's Friend and Foe. I think it was an internet friend who first recommended them to me, and their album I Am the Fun Blame Monster! has been living on my computer ever since. I think I know a song or two off of it. For whatever reason, while browsing some SoulSeek user's shared files a year or so ago I saw Friend and Foe and decided to add it to my collection as well. Like so many random songs, the aforementioned "Muscle'n Flow" ended up on a monthly mix CD and is going to continue to pop into my head from time to time. When such an occasion occurs, I do something like revisit the album, searching for another piece of ear candy. I burned myself a CD-R copy, and put it on waiting for something to jump at me. Nothing really did, but I wasn't disappointed. Some music just works better as a vague whole of background sounds as opposed to tracks requiring individual observation.

Mines makes me think it's Menomena as a band that I interpret as something wonderfully un-examined. Why try to pick them apart for their single songs when from start to finish there is nothing not to like? While at work, backing up my computer onto an external hard drive, jump-starting my brain over an LA Times online crossword, observing the nine-to-fivers signing onto Facebook, or any combination of daily wake-up activities; a soundtrack is just what moments like these need. Something not so specific as to be distracting, but enjoyable as to not once make me think that putting on fifty five minutes of music was a bad decision. Every now and then I pick out a lyric that I really like, or an instrument that catches my ear. Parts working so well as sections of a greater whole, I think.

album review: Of Gold

2010-10-01T10:47:00.000-04:00

This review was originally written on August 23rd and was submitted to McSweeny's for their columnist contest. They requested that submissions be previously unpublished, so I refrained from posting it in this blog. Now that the contest is over (and I did not win) I can post the entry here for your reading pleasure.

Sunday night, as I pulled my bike out of the garage and took off for my friend's to watch Mad Men, I felt a tinge of everything in my world being perfect. The temperature was ideal and unusually cool for mid-August and the setting sun was peeking now and then from behind the clouds. I was wearing a new jacket that I would basically be living in for the next three months and around my shoulder I was carrying a portable cooler with a built in speaker. The combination of a well-spent day and emotional comforts resounded strongly to a depth of my mind and soul which I too rarely tap into.

Pedaling down my street, I listened to "Cannibals", the final track on Of Gold, which starts with an introspective muted guitar reminiscent of my favorite post-emo indie rock bands like The Jazz June or Jets to Brazil. The song grows into a sprawling poetry of lyrics, scattered drumming and guitar twangs. A slight departure from the organic and kinetic energy of the preceding songs, this track is the breath of Autumn which serves perfectly as a closing statement for the album and complimented the greying air around me. Bars of Gold's strength is their sure-footed approach to an energetic live show and passionate message. Their performance is a confrontation and a challenge. There is nowhere I would rather be than in attendance, with my hand uncontrollably rapping on my chest.

As "Cannibals" builds into a repeated chorus, the emotion grows discontented with a soft-spoken delivery and becomes an impatient pounding. Screams overlay and fight with humble chantings of the metaphorical message, "I was born a cannibal". It is a hunger not for flesh but for love. A need for inclusion in someone's everyday life, to sustain a yearning heart so wholly different from another human's, and proudly so.

"I was born a cannibal; not like any cannibal you've seen before."

Often in the Fall I adopt feelings of contentment with the world. I absentmindedly reflect on the Summer behind me and all I have accomplished, pleased that I can call it to a close with no remorse for what I might have done. Perhaps it is simply my mind preparing for the yearly Winter, an aspect of growing up in the Midwest which I would never trade for warmer weather. That such a mindset snuck up on me on this August evening was indeed comforting. Perhaps it was because I had spent the day in solitude cleaning my house, or had looked up the lyrics to "Cannibals" and found that my own interpretation of them supplemented my hopeful, romantic nature and left me, on a Sunday night, seeing weeks and years ahead of me in love and among friends. I spend a lot of time and effort preparing for future happiness. What are thoughts and actions, toward and for others, if not truthful to our character which we are free to sketch for ourselves, erase and sketch again? Though we may revise them, they are surely ours, and will only ever be. The rights and wrongs of our selves are infallible and it would be foolish to not let our decisions follow them honestly, drawing each of us as a perfect person to live as in the world.

October 2010 mix: time for ourselves

2010-10-01T10:00:00.005-04:00

1. Vikings - Tonight
2. Quasi - All The Same
3. Thunderbirds Are Now! - Why We War
4. The House Martins - Anxious
5. Menomena - Weird
6. Simon & Garfunkel - Bleeker Street
7. The Jazz June - The Phone Works Both Ways
8. The Ivory Coast - Swope
9. Talking Heads - Memories Can't Wait
10. The Notwist - Good Lies
11. The Besnard Lakes - And This is What We Call Progress
12. Nada Surf - From Now On
13. The Sea and Cake - Le Baron
14. Caribou - Leave House
15. The Go Find - One Hundred Percent
16. Four Tet - She Just Likes to Fight
17. Rogue Wave - 10:1
18. The Most Serene Republic - The Protagonist Suddenly Realizes
What He Must Do in the Middle of Downtown Traffic
19. Owls - I Want the Blindingly Cute to Confide in Me
20. Broken Social Scene - Looks Just Like the Sun

movie review: DeathBed

2010-09-29T15:50:00.004-04:00

First thing's first: this is not Death Bed: The Bed That Eats as made famous by stand-up comedian Patton Oswalt. No doubt taking advantage of pop-culture notariety, this is a cheaply made movie about a bed that inspires death rather than murders.

My roommate had heard Oswalt's routine about "the bed that eats people" and asked me to track it down. Only twenty minutes before our friends showed up for B-movie night did we realize that I'd netflixed the wrong film. Undeterred, we popped in DeathBed and were immediately amused by the laughable list of credits, seemingly a bunch with a history in the porn industry (ie. Meagan Mangum, Jonhy R. Long, Max Schlimm). Things don't get any less-erotic as the first half of the movie focuses on a couple's renting of a warehouse apartment and from there delves into their sexual frustrations. We get plenty of pillow talk and sleazy love making. It was like the last time I hosted and we ended up watching a movie that was basically softcore porn (see: Vixen movie review.) When stay-at-home-artist Karen hears screaming from a locked room at the top of a staircase, she invites the landlord over to pry the door open. When they discover a dust-covered brass bed, it's only logical that she'd want to clean it up and use it as a tool to bring some spice into her relationship.

So the warehouse has a history as the site of numerous murders in the 1920s which cause Karen to unexplainably create gruesome drawings. I'd try to sum up the plot further but the final twenty minutes of the movie are almost impossible to follow. What I can say for sure is that at one point the boyfriend, Jerry, gets possessed by an entity which grabs him through his reflection in a mirror, à la Evil Dead 2. You can't tell who's real and who's a ghost, but by this point in the movie, you just don't care. Too bad the cheesy gore payoff is kinda minimal. I haven't even seen the aforementioned "real" Death Bed, but I'm willing to bet that it would be a better waste of your time.

Monday night at the WAB #4

2010-09-28T11:11:00.003-04:00

Monday I finally got my turntable back from the guy who was repairing it. We had been emailing back and forth for a few days, and my anxiousness was showing. Around noon I took a break from work and drove to his house to pick it up. Not only did it have a brand new cartridge and stylus, but he cleaned the gears that operated the arm and showed me how to use the automatic play function. No longer will I have to worry about dropping the needle too aggressively. When I got home from work I wasted no time in putting something on. My inaugural choice was the first lesser-known find I came across at a record store: Zero Zero's Am Gold (on clear orange vinyl!) One of my roommates came home and suggested we continue a tradition he'd been keeping strong for over a month now and have dinner at the WAB.

We grabbed a table by a window and placed our food orders with side orders of their amazing honey mustard. At the DIY Street Fair I learned that it's Dearborn brand and before long will be buying jar after jar of it. For the evening, it was good enough to have as a side for my potato chips as we jawed about our girl situations. Two pints of beer and two hours of conversation later, I re-realized why he's one of my best friends. The two of us are alike in just the right ways for a dependable relationship. We have our differences, sure, but it's not like anyone we know is exactly like ourselves. And really, who wants to be friends with their doppelganger?

We came home and I went right to sleep. My night was full of strange and disturbing dreams; borderline nightmares. I bolted right out of bed when my alarm went off, which is the song "Good Day Sunshine" by the Beatles. Rain was pouring outside my window and the clouds made the sky very dark. Or maybe it was the shortening daylight. That time of year, I suppose. One of my roommates had already left for work, and the other was on his way out the door when I came downstairs. By the time I've ground some coffee beans and gotten in the shower I have the house to myself. A functioning automatic record player is going to make filling my morning with music that much easier. Today it was side A of The Ivory Coast's Clouds. I thought about a review I read once which bashed the album, and called out "Five Little Graves" as being particularly terrible, which is my favorite song on the album.

Sometimes all you can do is stand by your opinions.

Tigers game, 9/24/10

2010-09-25T13:31:00.001-04:00

My parents were supposed to go to the Grand Canyon last week. They hadn't been on a vacation since I was in middle school and were definitely due for one. Unfortunately, my dad got sick right before they left and felt terrible when they arrived at their hotel in Arizona. Sunday night my dad called me and when I saw that it was coming from the house phone, I knew what had happened. He assured me that they were going to make the best of the week they had taken off from work, and invited me to come with them to the Tigers game on Friday night.

The following work week was a busy one. Most of my time was spent ripping videos off YouTube, which had to be converted twice before they could be brought into Avid (our editing software.) Our deadline was a Friday midday meeting which promised to result in a bunch of changes and a weekend of work. As it turned out, they loved what we did, and around 3:00 on Friday got an okay to leave early, as a reward for consecutive long days. I finally had a chance to swing by UHF Records and pick up my vinyl copy of Apostle of Hustle's National Anthem of Nowhere (my favorite album of all time.)

My parents had invited me to bring someone along, so I went over to my friend's house for a couple hours before we drove downtown for the game. Once there we promptly grabbed a couple hot dogs and sat down in our seats just as they announced the starting lineups. We were in the right field bleachers, just a section over from the seats that I had bought from a lady at my work four times earlier this season. My mom told me about their "staycation" and my friend and I commented on our fellow baseball patrons. In front of us was a kid who kept sticking his arms half inside his shirt and clapping, completely independent from the organ prompts but rhythmic nonetheless. He also exhibited some admirable dance moves, much more fluid than anything we'd been able to achieve. Other less-amusing fans prompted a post in a joint-effort blog that we've just started: blog ideas; where each entry is a clever concept and a sample entry. Much easier and rewarding than actually starting the proposed blog. After the sun set and the wind started blowing again, the incredibly warm afternoon gave way to a chilly evening and the blanket my mom let us use wasn't enough to keep me from shivering. When we stood for the seventh inning stretch we decided it was the perfect time to take our leave. On our way to the car, my dad called to tell us that we'd scored nine runs which made our tickets redeemable for a free Hot and Ready pizza at Little Caesars the next day.

DIY Street Fair, 2010

2010-09-23T17:07:00.007-04:00

Summer ended for myself, and for most of the city of Ferndale, with an event so solid in its foundation that it's hard to believe it's only been going on for three years. For the final weekend before fall, the area of Troy street between The Emory and The WAB, along with the adjoining parking lots, is taken over with booths of local crafters and a stage just off the edge of Woodward. I spent almost all of the time I had available at the fair, because I knew that if I was at home, I would want to be there.

Last year was my first time visiting the DIY, and this year I decided that I would volunteer to help out. We had an informal meeting on the Wednesday prior to discuss a little bit what we would be asked to do. All in all there wasn't a lot of responsibility involved, just offering assistance where it was needed. I showed up Friday evening, grabbed a t-shirt and wandered around to get a feel for the atmosphere. A number of the vendors were friends of mine, so I stopped by to see them first. My favorite local artist was there, the lady behind Sloe Gin Fizz. It was at the DIY last year that I had first met her, when I walked into her booth, loved every piece of art she had, looked at her business card and said to her, "Your last name is the same as my first name." My volunteer duties were minimal, so I wandered around for the rest of the evening, running into people I knew. I felt that every time I got into conversation with someone, it never really finished, as our surroundings or other friends interrupted. It wasn't bad, as the weekend seemed to promise one distraction after another, just waiting for you to follow along.

I was tired for most of the day Saturday, but resumed volunteering shortly after noon. My time was mostly spent wandering around saying 'hi' to the vendors, offering to keep an eye on their booth if they needed to step away for a minute or to run and grab them food. Occasionally someone would bite on my offer, and between volunteer duties and talking with friends my afternoon passed fairly quickly. The one band I really wanted to see was Duende, who I had only just discovered the week before, and who once again played an awesome cover of The Talking Head's "Life During Wartime". After stocking the Porta-Johns with toilet paper I decided my volunteering had come to an end and grabbed some dinner. Many local restaurants were serving food, and The Fly Trap's fried rice seemed to be the crowd favorite as their red carry-out containers were easy to spot in many people's hands. It sat like a brick in my stomach, but was very tasty, especially with a little swat sauce. I spent the next couple hours at my friend's uncle's booth. Saturday was her birthday, but she offered to help while he attended a wedding, and I held down the stand myself so she could go around and visit friends. After we closed the booth, I watched a bit of The Electric Six before meeting up with my roommate and some bike club friends. We went to the Loving Touch to see Lettercamp, who had some bad luck with a terrible opening band that wouldn't stop playing and a power outage in the middle of a song. Despite a bad set, I won't forget the time I saw them at the Majestic Cafe and they sounded awesome. At the end of an incredibly long day, I was happy to head home to ten hours of sleep, ready for one more day.

Sunday was my opportunity to relax and just enjoy the fair. I browsed all of the booths in search of some things to buy. Not looking to spend a lot of money, I picked up some handmade bars of soap, a couple buttons and a copy of Duende's Remnant of a Remnant. After walking my purchases home I returned to close out the weekend.

As the final major acts played their sets, my friend and I ate dinner inside the Emory. Last year, I had done a similar thing with one of my friends who is now my roommate, though it was during the Friendly Foes set and I was desperately trying to get outside and see them. For being right beside the almost chaotic atmosphere of the ongoing fair, inside The Emory was very quiet. We hunkered down in a booth and waited a long time for menus and someone to take our order. I didn't mind; I had recognized our quiet time inside as a break from the craziness of the quickly ending weekend. Last year the Sights surprised everyone with a rooftop performance covering The Beatle's famous set which seemed to bring the entire city together for the event's finale. I half-expected another surprise act as the daylight waned outside the window of our table. Instead, the weekend culminated for me in a more personal way. With booths packed up and wares being loaded into cars, my friend and I took our last turns at the beer tent. Every time one of us turned around we were running into someone else we knew. My neighbor who I've hardly gotten to know was there and we talked with her for a while. She even invited the two of us to come over sometime. Out of tickets, our friend serving beer gave us several freebies, and I ran into someone from bike club who I'd seen as many times as anyone else over the course of the weekend. Standing there among a quickly thinning crowd, I observed and said to her that "We are the new generation", and while I was talking about our roles as leaders of the Ferndale bike club, I've been realizing how that applies on a grander scale. Perhaps my youth is catching up with me. This summer has certainly had a lot to do with rediscovering myself and my intentions. Conversations with friends and strangers on a closed off street in my new hometown perfectly capped the climactic weekend of Summer 2010.

The Berkley Front

2010-09-17T11:30:00.000-04:00

I wouldn't say the city of Berkley, Michigan is known for much. To me, they seem to have not quite what I'd want from the place where I live. It seems more of a residential community with a little-bit-of-most-everything feel. Emphasis on "little-bit". The Berkley Front is the only bar in the city I've been to (the others don't look appealing), and aside from an upscale pizza place (Amici's) and a pretty cool book/art store (Mayflower) there's nothing drawing me there.

I've been to the Berkley Front probably close to a dozen times. My first experience was on a weeknight for a Dead Bodies show. Someone from my work is in the band, so I arrived early, expecting to run into a bunch of coworkers. I took a seat at the downstairs bar and ordered a chicken sandwich. In front of me, on a huge white board was a list of over forty beers on draught, most of them locally brewed. This was around the time when I was first discovering the different varieties of beer, and I'm sure I went with something that had an interesting name, though I can't remember what it was. I learned that the second floor is where the stage was located, and when I decided to make my way upstairs it was like walking into an entirely different world. The bar is tucked in the back of the room with nothing on tap. They do have a nice assortment of Bell's beers in bottles, though the atmosphere almost begs you to order a can of PBR at two dollars a pop. And maybe a shot of whiskey.

The room is small, with a corner stage at the far end and an adjacent area for equipment storage. A couple tables are scattered in front, which incite a little bit of poking your head around when you first arrive, because if you don't see a table you can join you would think twice before claiming one. Almost everyone I've talked to has one complaint or another about the sound quality there. Personally, I find that to be part of the Berkley Front's charm as a venue. If you stand too close to the stage, the sound can be piercing and shrill, whereas at the back of the room the low sounds overwhelm the rest of the instruments. In the past couple years I have seen a number of great shows, including Javelins, The Friendly Foes, Serenity Court and a record release show for my friend Sunil Sawani. The quality of the sound aside, all of the performances were memorable. Atmosphere counts for a lot and this is one venue with a lot of character. The band Forget frequently has shows here and their abstract, unstructured sets seem right at home in the dirty, imperfect upstairs of the Berkley Front. For a night it becomes the equivalent of a basement hangout where a group of friends gather to celebrate their similar interests in music.

For her birthday, my friend and I went to the Berkley Front for a couple drinks. We sat downstairs in a booth nestled comfortably among the din of a Wednesday night crowd - just busy enough that we didn't feel like the only ones there. Our booth was lit by an incredibly bright bulb that we promptly covered with napkins once our beers arrived. Our waitress was really nice, and casually asked us to order our second round before she left for the day. Their bathroom was amusingly adorned with lots of humorous graffiti. Next time I'm bringing my camera and submitting something to notesfromthestall.com. I can't say I've ever had a bad time at the Berkley Front. For a while I was starting to see it as more of a venue than a neighborhood bar, but it serves as an out-of-the-way hangout spot just as well. Regardless of my feelings about Berkley as a city, the Berkley Front is up there on my list of places outside of Ferndale for a good beer.

movie review: The Night of the Hunter

2010-09-14T16:19:00.007-04:00

Every now and then I Netflix movies because I feel a need to watch them. When this happens it's because I think I'm missing out on something important that will either catch me by surprise and turn me on to a new facet of popular culture or alternately affirm my tastes by affirming my distastes. The latter happened recently when I watched Where The Wild Things Are, which could barely keep my attention. I didn't even deem it worthy of a review entailing how much I didn't enjoy it. Still, I had a laugh to myself every now and then over the ways I realized it was not something I liked.

Last night was a different story. After another Monday dinner at the WAB with my roommate over guy talk and under perfect September weather, we rode our bikes home and quickly separated to our own devices. He called the girl he has been seeing and I settled down on the couch for an evening of solitary relaxation I'd been missing for several months. On accident I had left The Night of the Hunter at the top of my Netflix queue, instead of bumping it down until a time when I could give it the proper anticipation I usually apply to my Netflix decisions. On this occasion I was happy to be surprised by the opportunity.

Rather than trying to remember the reasons why one of my clients originally recommended that I watch this movie, I took it at face value. The film's exposition is predictably lengthy and I'm sure the film's antagonist, the questionably devout priest with the iconic "LOVE" and "HATE" tattooed on his knuckles, was scarier in the 1950's. Where this movies shines is its photography and atmosphere. Several scenes are memorable images that are surely considered highlights of classic filmmaking. My favorites are the narrowly framed bedroom murder scene, the haunting underwater corpse in a car and the moonlit riverbank where two young children escape the psychopathic reverend. Refusing to reveal the secret hiding spot of their late father's stolen riches, the kids travel down the Ohio river until being taken in by an old lady with a houseful of orphans. Eventually they are discovered and in a suspenseful climax the lady defends her house from the villain waiting patiently outside, signing church hymns. Hidden behind the porch screen clutching a shotgun, she defiantly joins him in his singing before a child interrupts their standoff and allows for an admittedly disappointing confrontation. The movie concludes with some heartwarming moments of holiday compassion from the old lady who addresses the camera and tells us "Lord, save little children. The wind blows and the rain's a-cold. Yet they abide... They abide and they endure." The entire ending is a kind of light icing on a dark, dense cake, and the strength of this movie is in it's meaty center. Many nuances of humor and suspense mix in wonderfully to a piece of starkly contrasted art. While sloped with weakness at start and finish, this core of this movie is a beautiful example of what I always believed film noir should be. Aesthetics, sure, but not without a little bit of love and hate.

UHF Records

2010-09-12T11:37:00.005-04:00

The number of long Summer weekends in 2010 is dwindling, and every week is coming packed with more and more events attempting to pull you in different directions. My weekend started on Thursday night with the Bars of Gold record release at Small's in Hamtramck. I had been anticipating the show for months and had already been listening to my burned CD version on repeat for weeks. Never before had I been surrounded by more people that I knew and it was comforting to view that night as a gathering of everyone in the Metro Detroit music scene. I had taken Friday off work, and spent most of the day over at my friend's house. For dinner we decided to go to Mexican Town and found a tiny hole-in-the-wall place with an elaborate cock-fighting mural on the wall and an excellent combination plate, which we both ordered. We stopped for a drink at Jacoby's before going to New Center Park for a free concert. The outdoor stage there has been one of my favorite places to be this summer. We sat on the grass and watched Duende!, Macrame Tiger and Oscillating Fan Club, two of which I had never seen before and both of whom surprised me with their awesomeness (hint: one of those bands was not Macrame Tiger.)

Saturday the bike club had intended to ride to Midtown for Dally in the Alley. Before making the long trek down, we decided on a shorter ride to Royal Oak to check out UHF Records which opened that day and was run by some friends of bike club. My first visit left me completely in awe. Having just entered the world of vinyl with an eye on practically any album I recognize, it was difficult for me to focus and narrow down my browsing. The store is loaded with used albums from lots and lots of not only popular artists but lesser-known greats, and their brand new selection was well-stocked with indie favorites. Almost the entire store was vinyl, with a wall of used CDs and posters for sale as well. At the front of the store they even have an old-fashioned listening booth. To prevent hasty over-accumulation I decided to only get two albums and went with a brand new copy of Spoon's Kill The Moonlight and Paul Simon's Graceland, which had both been high on my mental list of "must-haves" when buying a turntable first became a reality. I talked to one of the owners about ordering newer releases as I go about building my collection, and he was happy to offer the service. Let's just say I think I've found my record store to frequent.

After separating into two groups to make stops at home before heading down to Detroit, it started to rain and we decided to end the ride early. We left it up to everyone individually to visit or not visit Dally in the Alley later, and our group just decided to seek shelter inside. In the tradition of B-movie night we watched Terrorvision, an excellent example of overacting, wonderfully cheesy one-liners and 80's special effects. Sitting in our friend's living room eating potato chips and drinking High Lifes, my friend summed things up perfectly, saying, "Best Dally in the Alley ever."

Self-Reliance

2010-09-09T16:45:00.000-04:00

http://emersoncentral.com/selfreliance.htm

Writing this entry is contradictory and wrong. The essay of which I type these words seeks to educate the humble man to a realization that no greatness is ever achieved from imitation. It is inside ourselves that we find true happiness and purpose. We are all no more or less greater than our ancestors, whose names are remembered or forgotten.

There really is no more that I can say of this essay than to read it, as it rings with many truths and ideas that I would never want to rewrite. And yet, I feel it asking me to write all the same. Not to repeat words which I have read, but think and breathe and be my own thoughts and opinions, and to know that as right or wrong to others as they may be, they are ultimately mine and as such priceless. It asks me to rely on my intuition.

Rather than seek advice and wisdom, we should discover faith in ourselves. Every one of us knows what is right, in a way that does not matter to anyone else, and is so absolute that it is at first thought unquestionable. These feelings of infalible intuition are the very core of our individuality, and a compass to happiness, fulfillment and an honestly lived life. Disspel your fears of your past; your need to adhere to it and your dread to repeat it. The past has trailed behind us only to get us to this point, and will continue to fall like dust, not asking us to look back. Every new moment is yours to work with how you chose. Every action is yours, as your hands cannot be forced. True responsibility comes not from following orders or suggestions, but from actualizing our individual whims in a self-sustaining and thoughtful manner. We all know the world in which we live and the opportunities that constantly sit like cakes behind glass that we feel unable to attain. Be one with that world. Do not let it disappoint you, because that sadness is only yours, not the world's.

But I believe that in a world of self-realized individuals, true brotherhood grows. When we are so faithful to ourselves that our actions never feel as if they are influenced by someone else, we then give way to the urge of chivalry. Aiding our fellow humans feels a way to communicate the wonder and beauty of every day life, and supplement our joy through sharing. We often react to situations in a selfish manner - doing what will make us most comfortable, through various forms of sin. The greed of overusing a commodity; the vanity of false interest in another's well-being. When we as fellow humans are not afraid of our thoughts and expressing them, we will find ourselves among our truest friends.

Pete Campbell's Bitchface

2010-09-08T14:43:00.000-04:00

I remember that when I first started this blog I intended it to include more entertaining internet links. Since I've been slacking in that department, look up the Insane Clown Posses's video for "Miracles" and the subsequent SNL parody. It's tough to decide which one's funnier.

Today, I feel impelled to link a blog whose appeal is self-evident, at least for fans of Mad Men or of hilarious facial expressions.

http://petecampbellsbitchface.tumblr.com/

BBQ

2010-09-07T12:08:00.002-04:00

For anyone out there reading this who doesn't know me in real life, or was not invited (sorry), I hosted a barbecue at my house this past weekend and believe that is a perfectly acceptable excuse for not having updated this blog in a week. While the night was many things, most prominently birthday celebrations for both my roommates and an afterparty for bike club's ride to Arts, Beats & Eats, for me it was more about an end to Summer.

I am ready for Autumn, and its perfect weather, though I know it won't last as long as I want it to. And I am ready for Winter, and listening to Christmas music on my record player, though I know February will be dry and sickening and last forever. And I am ready for next Summer, though I know it is so far away and there is really a lot of life to live before then.

Let's just say my only regret was that I kept fighting my roommates for control of the music.

September 2010 mix: the edge of the world

2010-09-01T13:00:00.002-04:00

1. Bars Of Gold - The Hustle
2. Cut Off Your Hands - Let's Get Out of Here
3. American Football - I'll See You When We're Both Not So Emotional
4. Blueline Medic - Over the Lawn
5. Frontier Ruckus - Nerves of the Nightmind
6. XTC - English Roundabout
7. Electric President - Graves and the Infinite Arm
8. Child Bite - Odd Inn
9. Wilco - I'm A Wheel
10. The Apples in Stereo - Do You Understand?
11. Arcade Fire - Modern Man
12. Apostle of Hustle - Kings & Queens
13. British Sea Power - How Will I Ever Find My Way Home?
14. Pinback - Photograph Taken
15. Belle and Sebastian - A Summer Wasting
16. Laarks - All the Words You Can't Say Right
17. Owls - Everyone is My Friend
18. Built To Spill - Sidewalk
19. Holiday Shores - Errand of Tongue
20. Califone - Sunday Noises
21. Ereland Oye - Ever Party Has A Winner and A Loser

Monday night at the WAB #3

2010-08-31T14:21:00.002-04:00

Yesterday I bought a record player. Or rather, I bought a piece of furniture with a turntable inside of it (and an 8-track player.) It's not like I have to justify the awesomeness of vinyl. What I can say is that this is a milestone in my life.

While a standalone record player would have its advantages, the nuances of owning a cabinet unit are exactly what I was looking for. As I work my way through my digital library and purchase my favorite albums on vinyl, music listening is going to become more the involving experience that it should be. While the fake wood exterior isn't the coolest, I view it as an opportunity to custom design a new facade. The best part of the story is that I bought it from someone who was just going to put it out to the side of the road; unaware of and uninterested in how valuable it would be to the right person. Thankfully, they decided to put it on Craigslist.

After an inaugural playing of Joe Jackson's Look Sharp!, my roommates and I rode our bikes up to the WAB for a late dinner. It seemed that we all had something to celebrate, as they had both recently gotten jobs. We chatted about beer and girls, among other things, and it was relaxing to be with two of my closest friends. At one point one of my roommates mentioned that he wouldn't mind coming to the WAB for dinner every Monday. I thought about their delicious honey mustard and how perfect the weather would be over the next couple months for sitting on the outdoor patio, with a lighter or heavier jacket depending on the temperature, and agreed with him. So many pieces of my life felt like they were falling in to place, all I could do was hope that I would keep up the inertia of happiness.

We didn't stay late, but thoughts of building a new music collection from scratch (awful pun completely unintended) kept me awake long into the night. Now, they're keeping me distracted at work.

album review: Pinkerton

2010-08-28T16:02:00.001-04:00

Weezer has always been one of those bands I don't have a problem with, but never listen to. In high school I remember hearing "Hash Pipe" and thinking, "Oh yeah, these are those guys that did that song about the sweater that they play on 89X." Since then I've developed my musical tastes outside of alternative radio hits, and consequently hear even less of Weezer in my everyday life. The other day an editor I was working with put on "Say it Ain't So" and found myself enjoying it. A quick Wikipedia search of their discography enlightened me to the long hiatus before releasing the so-called "Green Album" which had come out when I first heard of them. Five years prior, they had released the album Pinkerton whose name seemed to carry some significance, though I didn't recognize any of the songs it contained. Some further research into the album's history intrigued me, particularly its original concept as a space-rock-opera and for being darker in tone than their material I was familiar with.

So, I downloaded Pinkerton while stuck working late on a Friday. In between busy times I tried to play it on my Macbook, but the tiny speakers weren't doing the complex sound of the album justice. After getting home after 8:00 and watching some Curb Your Enthusiasm with a glass of wine I decided to go for a walk and give it a decent listen.

The opening track "Tired of Sex" has some great over-driven keyboards, and there is some real tangible passion when Rivers sends his voice into a scream. Subsequent tracks have a similar angsty, emo rock edge to them, albeit nothing to the degree of Cap'n Jazz, Braid or Texas is the Reason. Trying not to compare them to their mid-nineties contemporaries, I was impressed with this album. Maybe a track or two is going to make it into regular rotation on my stereo, but I'm not prepared to call myself a Weezer fan. Some of the lyrics are a little too predictable and some of the emotion seems dry and forced. Still, there's no denying how awesome the cover art is. With my eye on finally buying a turntable, maybe I'll pick up the vinyl - but probably not for the high price it's going to demand.

movie review: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

2010-08-25T12:55:00.005-04:00

Pat Benatar once sang, "Love is a battlefield", and yes, I had to look that up. Well, that was then (like, the seventies right?) These days, love is an arcade game. Our generation has something different to say about infatuation and how movies should be made. What's comforting to see in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is that while love has become more of an 8-bit, side-scrolling background than a barbed-wire strewn "no man's land", it still rewards devotion and learning with hands-holding, public make-out bliss. This is the kind of movie that couldn't have been made ten years ago, and not just because Michael Cera was still in diapers and Edgar Wright was dutifully making Spaced. The floating, Street Fighter graphics and breakneck pace of the story are catered to the modern age of YouTube and Twitter. While I usually find myself overwhelmed by this kind of assault on my senses, Scott Pilgrim does an excellent job of balancing each attention-demanding element.

After realizing the (literal) girl of his dreams is a real person living in his city of Toronto, Scott's disillusioned concept of time is portrayed wonderfully by flawless cuts to scenes several hours apart, carrying us along in his lack of interest in anything that isn't the girl with the pink hair. On first watch, its difficult to follow that Scott is kind of a dick when it comes to relationships. Michael Cera's previous work does him an injustice here, as you expect him to be more of a chivalrous nerd. Seeing the movie for a second time, I was able to better pick up on the nuances of his "lady killer" attitude and his evolution into a caring and thoughtful man through his pivotal "power up" earning of self-respect. As much as relationships are about dedication and willing fight for someone else, they are first and foremost about being true to yourself. What I walked away from this movie with was a feeling that the truest sense of love one can feel for another only comes after standing up for your own good.

Gripes? Of course. I wish we had more a backstory of why and how Ramona dated twins - Asian twins at that. Was she purposefully trying to meet people of as many walks of life as possible? Also, Scott's history with Natalie/Envy was pretty hollow. Apart from that, this movie is the epitome of awesome. The segues from realistic to fantastic are enjoyable enough not to be stupid (save perhaps Matthew Patel's posse of demon hipster chicks.) The soundtrack, sets and casting are all perfect. Scott's roommate Wallace is my favorite character, a spot-on performance of comic honesty and sympathetic wisdom. Perhaps the best aspect of Scott Pilgrim is that we empathize with Scott. From his obsessive infatuation to the joyous romance it becomes, we feel ready to strap on brass knuckles ourselves if that's what it takes to win Ramona's heart. If only our own lives could be so beautifully wrought with stylistic flourishes and pixelated accoutrements. I'm sure many will walk away from this movie with such arcade additions playing through their mind into everyday situations. Real or imagined, flying through the air and psychic abilities pale in comparison to the power of love.

Woodward Dream Cruise

2010-08-24T10:27:00.002-04:00

The phrase "Dream Cruise weekend" carries with it a lot of connotations. Most of the people in Ferndale, and the other areas surrounding Woodward, seem to be polarized in their love or hate. Maybe I haven't lived here long enough, but I find the Dream Cruise to be just uninteresting enough to be amusing. It's not like a detour is going to wreck my travel plans. All the same I joked to my roommates about the horrors of trying to get anywhere during the week prior. As it turns out, we drove to Meijer Friday night and ran into closed roads trying to cut through Berkley. Our drive practically doubled, and though I was anxious to not be late for Fucking Awesome Fest at the Majestic, our ridiculous roundabout trip through neighborhood streets was far from the worst thing that could've happened. At Meijer I bought a charcoal grill, which I am going to rely on my friends to operate/teach me to use, what with a big barbecue happening at our place in a couple weeks.

We made it home with enough time for me to drive down to Detroit and secure myself a seat at the bar in the Cafe. When I arrived, the fest had already started and I could hear a band playing upstairs in the Magic Stick. Last year, all of the acts I wanted to see were downstairs in the complex, either on the stage set up above the lanes of the Garden Bowl or right inside the doorway beneath the stairs. I knew that two stages were set up in the Stick, and I laughed at the idea of watching the crowd shift from one to the other between sets. On this particular night, I was more interested in downing some cocktails, and I had really only come to see one band: Bars of Gold.

They weren't the first to play, but I sat through a set by Darling Imperial (who weren't anything I would've gone out of my way to listen to) before moving up to the stage. I had seen Bars of Gold twice before. First at the WAB, which does not serve well as a venue but provided enough of an experience that I promised to see them again every time they play nearby. My second opportunity came earlier this summer when they opened for Child Bite at The Magic Bag. Their show Friday was the best yet, an entrancing performance that rang with an organic energy I haven't heard since Desaparecidos; the closest thing to reviving what must've been the beautiful chaos of Revolution Summer in Washington, D.C., 1985.

When I pulled into my driveway after midnight, I saw someone standing outside my front door. Imaging it to be one of my roommate's friends outside smoking, I was shocked to see a lady with white hair carrying a gas can. One of my roommates was talking to her from behind the screen door, and when she explained that she needed a hand getting to the alley so she could put gas in her car, I handed him the record I had just bought and asked her to lead the way. She stumbled and slurred her way to the alley, which was completely empty. She turned to me and wanted to know if it was I or my roommate who was "the grandson". When I asked her what she meant, all she had to say was the first name of the lady whose house I was now living in. The implications of what a severe amount of alcohol had led her to think barely crossed my mind as I realized I needed to get this lady home. I asked her to tell me her address, and it turned out to be a couple doors down from me. She was barely able to walk straight, so I stiffly held out my arm and led her back. I set the gas can on the ground outside where she claimed to live and told her that I was going home. Good deed or not, I feared I may have finally found the ghost that so many of my friends have speculated haunts my house. Turns out she's not dead, but a family friend still living down the street.

Saturday I woke up earlier than I would on a weekday to go golfing with a group of coworkers. We played at a course almost an hour away in Washington, Michigan. I took about every wrong turn I could trying to get there, but made it just in time to tee off. Thankfully we were playing best ball, so the half dozen I lost didn't affect our team score, and about halfway through I re-found my swing which I had developed from years of golfing growing up. At the end of the day I was happy to have hit a decent number of solid shots. Oh yeah, and our team won.

Once back home I cooked myself some lunch, waiting to see what the evening would turn into. Dreary weather lessened the prospect of either a late bike club ride or trying out the new grill. My roommates went up to Royal Oak with some friends and I tagged along. They sat down to play a Monopoly drinking game, but I had other plans. My friends in the band Forget had invited me to go Dream Cruise busking. They asked me to bring an instrument I did not know how to play so we could walk around downtown Ferndale making silly noises for everyone's amusement. In addition to the mandolin which I brought, I got a chance to "play" a trombone and a violin. We spent a good fifteen minutes outside of Boogie Fever where several people waiting in line took pictures of us. We played right up the stairs of the WAB and sat down for a celebratory drink. I was sad that I had to return to Royal Oak to meet up with my roommates, but so glad that I had done something my life had been missing. It was maybe the most fun I'd had in years. Without the Dream Cruise, an opportunity like that wouldn't have been possible. That's enough of a reason for me to look forward to this time of summer next year. Maybe I can try my hand at that toy accordion.

album review: Roots & Crowns

2010-08-19T17:27:00.008-04:00

My second girlfriend made me two mix CDs during the tenure of our relationship. The first was a response to one I had made for her shortly after we met; the second was a New Year's gift. They were burned onto CD-Rs with a blue starburst design. The first I don't remember having anything written on it, and the second I believe she wrote "for Ray" onto, but it was with a marker whose ink didn't show well on the slick surface, and for the most part it was up to me to remember that they were not blank. Anyone who knows me knows that I am practically addicted to making music compilations. It is basically my natural action when struck with a pang of generosity. I can't even count the number of playlists I've half-composed in my head simply upon meeting someone who shares a couple favorite bands. That being said, I find that I'm very unreceptive to mixes given to me. It's not that I overly-critique them or imagine how I could've composed them better, but I'm interested more in music when I discover it myself.

She started off the first with "If Work Permits" by The Format. This was the kind of song that I normally wouldn't listen to, but numerous were the times I put this CD into my clock radio and cranked it full volume as I took a shower in my apartment which had recently become the first place I ever lived on my own. I would always sing along as the vocals cracked with the line "Hey, I - Hey, I'm doing alright" and the drums kicked in, sending the song into a frenzied departure from its tame opening. I could feel my heart constricting to the honesty and emotional power of the sound which had been given to me, and that I was taking as my own.

Two other songs on that CD have since become among my fifty or so all-time favorites: "Fake Empire" by The National and "The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth" by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, two bands that at the time I had heard of but never heard (geez, I have a million of those.) She had managed to present me with music that to this day I do not feel complete without. There was not a single bad song on that mix, many that I still listen to frequently and recommend to my own friends, with a feeling of stoic maturity toward where I first heard them.

Another song that was on that mix was Califone's "The Orchids". I should've felt some sort of disapproval for the its placement and that it doesn't start with silence but rather a warbling noise carried over from the previous track on its containing album. However, the soft-sung beauty of the sound penetrated deep beyond my predisposed attitudes and took root deep inside my head. Well after we'd separated, and through various forms of early twenties upheaval that my life underwent, the melodies of that song would pop up now and then, asking me to remember where they belonged and what I was going to do with them.

Last month I was struck with the impulse to create a cassette tape of agreeable and exceptional songs which I would mix together using Garage Band and garnish with humorous audio clips from TV shows and internet cartoons. This was to be the kind of project which I would pore over for weeks and weeks, tweaking every crossfade until it was perfect. It was then that "The Orchids" again surfaced and made its way onto the tracklist. The way it stayed on the edge of my mind without ever being overplayed made it special. I knew it was the kind of song that would someday catch someone else's ear, and I guess its inclusion on the tape only reinforced that nagging feeling I had that I would someday have to give it to someone. That day has not come.

Just like I can't completely explain why I almost exclusively prefer to discover new music than have someone introduce me to it, I am always fighting between giving a good listen to the multitude of un-played music currently in my collection and finding something new. I decided it was high time to find and listen to the rest of Califone's album. Maybe another gem was waiting for me to wipe off the dirt and stash it safely in the annals of my musical tastes.

What I did was quickly transfer my downloaded mp3 version of Roots & Crowns onto a CD-R which I decorated with my characteristic sharpie'd cover art recreation. I believe it was after a night of band practice with my friend that I placed the CD into my portable player and took it for a walk under the streetlights. My path was aimless, I simply wanted to give the album some fresh air to present itself to me. Whether or not it was a chilly night, the haunting opening track "Pink & Sour" created a darkness in it's trudging rhythms. Out of the shadows jump more instruments than I can name and the vocal chants offer a sort of "you are trapped here now with us" overtone. Just when you've resided to drown yourself in the sorrow that is sure to spring from the depths this album has welcomed you into, the second track, "Spider's House" is not an evil place to be, but a refreshing beam of light. Like a morning sun assuring you that the nightmares are only that, or realizing you are so far into the darkness that your eyes have only adjusted. Either way, the album is a pleasant stream of ambient noises and contained melodies, branched together as one living moment. The impression is that it was recorded while the band was sitting around a campfire in the middle of an October wood, with an entire production studio tucked into their knapsack.

Several times I have gone on long walks with this album to keep me company. One time I simply laid in the grass and stared at the stars. Another, I wandered into new part of my neighborhood and found Roots & Crowns to be a simple comfort in its familiarity. Whether I was waking from a nightmare into a bright new world, or so lost inside one that I would never get out, I was content. I closed my eyes and continued walking.

movie review: Vixen

2010-08-18T10:37:00.006-04:00

When Bike Club came across a garage sale a couple weekends ago with several boxes of free, dubbed VHS movies, I threw some into my bag and made plans for the next B-movie night at my house. One of those tapes was Vixen, which the maker had noted was "a film by Russ Meyer".

As we gathered in my living room last night over homemade guacamole and glasses of wine, I read off the names of the other movies we had as options, and when I came to Vixen, cries of "We've gotta watch this one!" came with the mention of Meyer's name. I had never heard of the guy before, but I was soon to find out his reputation after a unanimous vote for the night's feature presentation.

If you're like I was and have no real idea of what to expect going in, this movie comes at you like a curveball out of left field, and a mixed metaphor is about the only thing that can prepare you for it.

First we are introduced to the husband, a small plane pilot, and then to his wife, who is galavanting through the Canadian wilderness with a guy we later discover is a Mountie. (Don't make me say it - you know what they did.) There really isn't a plot to speak of, just several scenes which devolve into softcore sexual fantasies. Each time one of my friends arrived late I felt it necessary to answer the door by saying, "I have to warn you about what you're walking into."

With each off-the-wall music cue and hilarious cut I realized that watching this movie was more about the friends crammed into my tiny living room than the unrealistic actors on the screen. This was what B-movie night was supposed to be about: joining together and making fun of absurd films, even as... wait... aren't they... isn't that... her brother!?!?

Friday the 13th

2010-08-15T19:08:00.009-04:00

People usually associate Friday the thirteenth with bad luck, but I've found that all of the expected negative energy makes people focus more on all of the good things that happen to them on this particularly interesting non-holiday. For me, Friday was the start of a great weekend, which included my first time ever participating in a parade (the Ferndale Green Cruise), dinner with my parents, an awesome new sweatshirt (bought as a pre-emptive strike against my yearly impulse to buy one in the Fall), seeing Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World (which will likely earn its own entry, as it trumped Inception for best movie of the year in my opinion) and brunch at Lily's Seafood on Sunday. One of the best of the summer so far.

A couple of my friends who are in like a million bands were having a CD release Friday night for two of them, Jura and Indian Guides. I had been wanting to see Jura for a long time, and Mother Whale was opening, another band that a couple of my friends are in. I was all prepared to go solo but my roommate agreed to tag along. The show was at Alvin's, a venue I'd never been to. It didn't really seem like my kind of place, with guitars on the walls and a stage larger than the ones my usual independent, local favorites would play on. On a different night, I would expect to see motorcycles parked outside the front patio, which did look like it would be a nice place to have dinner. On that note, without seeing the menu, I imagine they serve a lot of greasy bar food. Well, there's a time and a place for everything.

Mother Whale's set started with seemingly random drum bangs supplemented by a Moog synthesizer. As the sound developed itself, it gave the impression of an alien whale, calling to the audience from the stage that it was preparing an attack; not with violence or wit, but with sheer, overwhelming size. Their second song featured an urgent drum beat which acted as a war march for the suggested invasion. As guitar was added, the Moog shifted to a bone shaking bass line. At the time I was jotting in my notebook and shot my head up at the sound, the hook was so powerful and grabbing. Each of the guys took turns at vocal passages, none of which really carried the particular song, but rather serve as another muted instrument placed with caution among the hail of heavy sonics. When their set ended, my roommate said that he thought it seemed really long. To me it was very short.

As they took down their equipment, I was reminded of a time that I was at Mr. Mugs which used to be in downtown Ypsilanti, the first rock venue I went to when I was in high school. I had arrived early to a show and was one of few in the audience when the first band finished playing. They were obviously touring around various cities and I could see them taking their equipment offstage and directly into their van parked outside. The guys in the band couldn't have been much older than me, if they were at all. Standing right in front of the stage and seeing the drummer take apart his kit, I asked if I could offer them a hand carrying stuff. They were quick to accept and gave friendly thanks which were all I was after; just glad to lend a hand. While I still feel the same urges to be of assistance, I feel like acceptance for that sort of help wanes as we grow older. I can understand the independence of wanting to do things for yourself. More than that, though, I believe in the positive energy in the gift of receiving. Too often these days I feel that people don't expect kindness unattached from ulterior motives. That is a sad thought, and I refuse to give in to it.

Speaking of high school days, when I got up to go to the bathroom, I walked past a guy in a Rage Against The Machine t-shirt. Do people really still wear those?

I was unaware that Indian Guides played next, because I knew that my friends were in Jura when they took the stage. Turns out they are in both bands, and having seen both, I think I like Indian Guides a little more. Though I was physically tired from six long days of work, and Indian Guide's songs were very dreamy, the two feelings did not connect and I was very awake, even as I closed my eyes and enjoyed their set. Too often I treat music as an addition to what I am doing rather than making it the focus. Even as I type this entry I am listening to Zero Zero's AM Gold, but the majority of my attention is on writing. Whenever I make the effort to simply appreciate music it feels well worth it. Seeing bands live certainly helps, and though I couldn't completely do that at the show, I very much enjoyed Indian Guides for being something that I wanted to simply focus on.

When I felt like dividing my attention, I opted for experimenting with my digital camera. In the low light, the lens had to remain open for several moments, during which I found that I could move the camera and create very interesting images:

work

2010-08-12T15:08:00.003-04:00

Back in my senior year of high school, I was waiting in line at a Taco Bell with a friend of mine. A stranger, who I believe was dressed like a postal worker, was waiting with us and my friend asked him something to the effect of "Do you like what you do?" The guy, probably annoyed that we were talking to him, half-answered, "It's a job", to which my friend openly responded, "The difference between a job and a career is a career is something you enjoy doing." At the time I was working part time cleaning out golf carts and was quick to agree that I did not in fact have a career.

That way of thinking still carries with me. For twenty-somethings like myself, a career is something that earns you money and has a path, one that you'd like to keep traveling down. Jobs can have paths too. How many restaurant managers used to be servers or hosts? Some of them, I'm sure, love what they do and would proudly defend it as an honest career. More power to them. What's great about this whole job versus career argument is that everyone can view their situation differently. The point is that when a career path has reached its end, you should find yourself comfortable, doing something that you love to do. It doesn't have to define who you are as a person, but it isn't going to feel like a job for the rest of your life.

Me? I love what I do. Even when I started in the shipping department licking envelopes and shelving tapes I was aware that time had become my only obstacle. I was where I wanted to be. My determination was in place, and confidence in my ability to learn whatever I needed to was going to take me on the next step of my journey. After a little more than a year I had reached the next major plateau on my way to becoming a Video Editor; that is, I became an Assistant Video Editor.

The hours can be terrible. Every day work takes precedence over almost anything else I'd like to do. In only two years as an Assistant I can't even recall all the times I've had to work weekends and/or late nights (a couple times all the way through to the morning.) More importantly, however, I can be myself when I'm at work. I can be happy when I have to come in for twelve hours on a Sunday only to wake up the next morning to the start of a five day work week. Sometimes my days are nine to five and sometimes they're nine to seven or eight. It's still my career.

movie review:Killer Klowns from Outer Space

2010-08-11T18:18:00.006-04:00

Chances are, simply reading the title of this movie is going to be a yardstick for exactly how much enjoyment you'll be able to garner from it. Either you're completely turned off by the improper spelling and ridiculous concept, or are inviting your friends over and sticking a batch of popcorn in the microwave. If you're in the latter camp, let me tell you that this film deserves its place towards the top of the "crap" heap. For campy, cheesy, cringe-worthy and other adjectives that begin with "C" (but should probably be spelled with a "K"), you kan't go wrong with Killer Klowns.

I've never been someone to outrightly proclaim that I have a fear of clowns. That being said, I don't think anyone actually likes them. Why would you? I certainly can't see why they would be considered entertaining. I suppose they're a hearken back to the days of court jesters - making a fool of themselves so their masters can feel superior or some nonsense. Heck, even the Three Stooges are funny to some people. As far as the whole red noses and silly jumpsuits go, I'm at a loss. Now that so many horror films have been made involving murderous clowns, the shift from amusing to terrifying seems more like natural territory for anonymous mutes in silly costumes. Credit Killer Klowns for making them look so obviously and outlandishly evil that they actually become hilarious.

The film's premise is simple: a bright flash in the sky signals the landing of an alien craft. When the unsuspecting, innocent townsfolk approach the landing site, they see a large yellow circus tent. One brave couple decides to wander inside what looks like a funhouse but turns out to be the inner-workings of a giant spaceship. Whether it be curiosity or stupidity that leads them to continue their exploration, they soon discover a room filled with hanging pink globs that look suspiciously like cotton candy. Wrapped inside are people, apparently captured and preserved for later consumption. Right on cue, in stumbles one of the alien klowns dressed head to toe in technicolor pajamas. Under a hail of popcorn "gunfire", the couple manages to escape and try to warn the police. Of course, everyone thinks they're crazy and the klowns start a rampage across town armed with ray guns that encase people in cotton candy cocoons.

One of the best things about this film is its visuals. The sets are elaborate art projects and the klown costumes look like what would happen if a thrift store ate a box of SweeTARTS and vomited on the actors. For the year it was made (1988) the special effects are really well done. My favorite scene involves a klown making impossible shadow puppets on a brick wall next to a bus stop. The people waiting nearby are joyfully captivated until the klown turns his hand into a menacing dinosaur with glowing red eyes that, despite being a two-dimensional projection, eats half a dozen people off the sidewalk. The actor's performances are the hidden gem of this movie. From the "teenage" actor's deliberately hokey dialogue to the unnecessarily serious officer Mooney. He delivers some particularly good one-liners, throwing in swear words seemingly at random.

"Killer clowns from outer space" (pause) "holy shit!"

Tigers game, 8/06/10

2010-08-08T19:44:00.003-04:00

This past Friday was the end to an incredibly busy week. Right after I got home from work, my roommate and I drove downtown for my second Tigers game in three days. LA was already leading four to nothing when we got there. Being behind often makes the game more interesting, but aside from a Brennan Boesch home run the Tigers didn't put up much of an effort. The most exciting part of the game was when Tori Hunter started arguing with the umpire and the Angels' manager ran on the field and literally shoved him out of the way so he could get in the ump's face. After several minutes of face-to-face yelling, a bag of baseballs came flying out of the dugout which scattered across the the infield around home plate. I likened it to a child who couldn't get his way and decided to throw his toys. Having such a strange occurance take place made up for the Tigers' loss, which put them so far behind in the standings that making the playoffs is practically impossible. Plus, there were fireworks after the game and I captured some pretty cool video. What it doesn't show is that, being downwind of the display in the right field bleachers, we kept getting pelted with debris. Throw a handful of sand into your face if you want to get the full effect:

My friend's old roommate from Michigan State was in town, so when we got back to Ferndale we picked up my other roommate and drove to Ye Olde Saloon. Word of mouth about the place had correctly set me up for my first experience there. It was nothing special (unless you like shuffleboard - which we didn't play) but not the kind of place I would refuse to return to. It felt like a cheap bar to go to when all of your favorite places are getting old. Ye Olde Saloon will give you a good time, but at the same time it will remind you of why other places have more potential as long as you don't wear them out. While we were there, the girl we had come to meet up told us a story of recently going to the Cadieux Cafe. Some clients had brought it up recently as one of many interesting places around Detroit that I should visit. They noted that the Cadieux Cafe is the only place in America that hosts feather bowling. Several times I've had it described to me, but really the best thing to do is see it for yourself. If you want to try, imagine rolling a big, clay doughnut down a dirt path about the length of a bowling lane and trying to get it to come to rest as close as possible to a feather sticking out of the ground at the other end. Somewhere between curling, horseshoes and bocce ball, it sounded like just the kind of thing I would love to do someday. She told us how a bachelor party had invited her to join in their game last time she was there, and while she was in town she really wanted check it out again. Our mutual interest in going got her to stay in town and crash at our place so we could all hang out the next day. Conversation continued on for most of the night about our favorite places in Detroit and how awesome the city is. A fun night indeed.

Saturday I rode with bike club for the first time in weeks. There were six of us and we spent most of the time taking over a lane of traffic on Woodward, the 696 service drive, Greenfield and Nine Mile. At one point a cop pulled up behind us, flashed his lights and told us not to ride in the road. He seemed to direct us into riding on the sidewalk, which is ironic since that's illegal. Once back in Ferndale we stopped at the Dairy Queen and went to a few garage sales. One guy was giving away tons of VHS dubs and I took a handful of potential B-movie night candidates including Plague of Zombies and Godzilla Vs. Mechagodzilla.

After the ride we made our trip out to the east side of Detroit and to the Cadieux Cafe. While we didn't actually try feather bowling, the building itself was really cool, and I had some delicious fish and chips. Because she lives so far away from Detroit, our friend wanted to take us somewhere else we had never been and decided on Ye Olde Tap Room (not Saloon), a fairly small bar that has more than 250 beers from around the world. We all made it a point to try something new and different. My first choice was a Scottish ale that I got simply because it was called "SkullSplitter". While the name was awesome, I've discovered that I don't enjoy beers that are heavy (both alcohol-wise and malt-wise) and sweet. My second was Gulden Draak, a similarly sweet and heavily-malted chore to drink. The bottle, however, was awesome and the bartender told me he'd wash it out and let me take it home. While were playing darts (another thing I'd never done which was a lot of fun), he came back to where we were with three shots, set them down and said "these Washington apples just showed up on the bar." If we weren't on our way to see my friend's band we could've spent the entire night there. Before leaving we thanked him and he introduced himself as Wally and said he's there every Saturday. It was really great to find somewhere out-of-town that I'd really like to return to. Our night was capped off with a great show at New Center Park, one of my new favorite places to spend a summer evening. Detroit really needed an outdoor venue and the grassy hillside and modern architecture are a great fit for the area, nestled just beneath the Fischer building. Being surrounded by people I knew from bike club and around town made me feel at home. I look forward to when they start showing movies and laying down a blanket in the grass.

album review: Three

2010-08-06T16:46:00.000-04:00

The father, the son and the holy ghost. Detroit's car companies. Usual number of games in a baseball series. Things seem to want to come in threes. Not only does Joel Plaskett's Three do just that (three discs that is), but the number is the album's theme. Phrases and words are repeated and then repeated again. Once is never enough, and that second time is only made more impactful with a third.

Last month at Baar Bazaar, after my friend's band had finished playing, over the loudspeaker came "Every Time You Leave", the opening track on Three. Its drum machine rhythm and catchy guitar had my foot tapping at first listen, and I paid close attention so I could jot down some of the lyrics and track it down on the internet for future listening. As luck would have it, I not only found the song but a free download of the entire album. Even at first listen the songs felt like old favorites. This guy was playing notes I wanted to hum and singing words I wanted to say. The feel when listening to it is like arriving home after a long walk through the snow. It is a Saturday night at home with the one you love, where all of the pieces of your life feel fit into place, and anything that's off will surely one day be fixed. Simple statements in the album's lyrics contain a magic that alleviates everyday problems. They are full of life, and I'm sure if you read into the meanings repeated once, twice, three times over the course of these 27 (3 x 3 x 3?) tracks, they will make yours a little brighter.

Plus, some of his songs sound like Paul Simon. That's a win in my book.

Tigers game, 8/04/2010

2010-08-05T15:03:00.000-04:00

A little over a month ago, before my vacation, the lady at my work who sells Tigers tickets posted a long list of games she had available. Unsure of what my schedule would hold I picked a Wednesday and a Friday night in the first week of August, confident that I'd be able to find a friend for each. One of the games I intended to go to with my new roommate, and as the dates approached we worked out that Friday would be better for him. With one more ticket to share I invited a friend who was in Wisconsin for a conference, but said that he would return in time to make it to the game.

He came over yesterday after I got home from work. Before he arrived I did some quick house cleaning. I was having some new windows installed the next day, so my roommate helped me take the air conditioner out of the window in my bedroom. Last summer, one of my big home improvement projects was having ten new windows put in throughout the ground floor. The old ones were single pane glass with metal frames. I shuddered every time I thought about how little heat they would keep in the winter. Memories of the past winter sleeping next to a space heater in my old second-floor apartment were fresh in my mind. I intended to spend the next one cozy, warm and on the ground. Because I was living alone the upstairs was basically just for storage, so I didn't bother to have to two up there replaced. After finally claiming the loft as my own a month ago after my roommates moved in, the constantly chipping paint and thoughts of a winter curled around the heater vent made me decide to complete the job.

On the drive down to Comerica Park my friend told me about the time he had just spent in the city of Madison, and how it equated to most Midwest college towns. He told me how all of the places that would appeal to people like us were found on one block of the city, and how that contrasted to Detroit where interesting venues are spread across various neighborhoods. I can see the charm of a "smaller big city", where you don't have to go far to do everything you might want to when spending a night out. At the same time, I enjoy Detroit's diffuse cultural makeup. On occasions, like the bicycle scavenger hunt I went on several months ago, when you can connect various places around the city, it makes for an exciting new experience. Most of the time, however, the activity dictates the location; if you want to do A, you should go to B. If you want C, go to D. This feeling only reinforces my love of Ferndale. While it maintains the "do it all here" homeliness, it doesn't have everything. Depending on your mood, it can be welcoming or nice to get away from. Ferndale has friendly bars, some really great restaurants and numerous shops that cater perfectly to its residents, but when you're looking for a concert or a walk along the riverfront, Detroit isn't far away. Likewise, if you're looking for great Mexican food, you're not going to go to Cantina Diablos, you're going to go to Mexicantown. In the end, the people make the city. The reason I feel so at home in Ferndale is because its culture has already been established by so many people with the same interests and ideas.

The game itself was fairly uneventful, us being Tigers fans. Chicago scored a run in the first inning and never trailed. The Tigers rallied in the eighth but only scored one run. For the most part, we spent our time chatting as opposed to watching the game. On the way back home he expounded on his interest in a career as a researcher. He told me of a specific study done with some Wayne State students as an example of the kind of thing he would one day like to administer. Two groups of strangers were put into a room together with conversational prompts. The first group took part in small talk ("how's the weather?", "do you like pizza?") while the second was given more enlightening topics, such as religion philosophy. After ten minutes or so, the groups were then asked to play a game of Jenga together. In concurrence with the researcher's hypothesis, the people that participated in small talk were less likely to work together while playing the game than the group which had engaged in more meaningful conversation. Hearing proof of a seemingly simple and positive outlook on humanity had me smiling. Recounting this story makes me want to launch into a philosophical rant about the importance of human bonding and sharing our thoughts and feelings, but I've decided I don't want this blog to be about that. Maybe my novel?

Monday night at the WAB #2

2010-08-03T14:32:00.001-04:00

Having not made it to the WAB for half-off food since my last blog entry about doing so nearly two months ago, I leapt at the chance when my friend suggested dinner. Her boyfriend was on vacation visiting family in England, and I could tell how much she was missing him. We walked from her apartment and updated each other on the various goings-on in our lives. When we arrived, the patio was of course packed and we decided to wait at the bar for someone to leave. As soon as we saw a group get up we tried to grab their spot, but the hostess informed us that there was a waiting list. A moment later she returned saying that a table for two had just opened, but that there was a bird who hung out by the table, "and, you know..." We got what she meant and laughed, saying that we would live dangerously. I found it quite charming that she even bothered to warn us, whereas most places wouldn't give a shit (pun intended.) Of course, not ten minutes after sitting there I noticed a small tap on my hand and looked down to see a spot of something wet and black. I was much more amused than upset about the situation, and I wanted to keep it on my hand to show the hostess. After five minutes or so it grew uncomfortable enough that I had to wipe it off.

I noticed yesterday that I have, for the first time in my life, developed tan lines on my feet from wearing flip-flops. For the past five years or so I have exclusively worn black slip-on Vans, and when I first attempted to wear sandals earlier this Spring, I don't think my feet understood what was going on. The sandals I bought were from Target, an attractive brown color with a contoured sole. They came attached to each other with a short length of elastic string. In my habit of turning often thrown away materials into something functional, I used the elastic as a strap for my sunglasses. Suffice it to say that the string has since gotten more use than the sandals. I gave them an honest shot, but after several uncomfortable wearings I resigned to forever walk in simple, canvas shoes. A month or so later, the Ferndale Bike Club rode to the Berkley Art Bash, and while I wasn't in the market for anything decorative, I wandered into City Style and considered some Detroit-themed apparel. What caught my eye was the plaid design on a pair of flip-flips that at first seemed too flat to be comfortable. Thankfully I gave them a shot and now, two months later, they've made their mark (another intended pun.) My weekends and some weeknights are spent in the same pair of brown shorts and complimentary footwear. Every so often then I catch the front lip on a rug or an un-level section of sidewalk, but for the most part my feet feel like they know where they're going and how to get there.

The Ugly Mug Cafe

2010-08-02T14:40:00.008-04:00

This past weekend began like most of mine do, with a little bit of sleeping in and a relaxed breakfast listening to NPR. I discovered that you can make a delicious french toast by mashing a banana in with the eggs. A little before noon I drove to Ypsilanti. One of my good high school friends had invited me to stay the night at his place, and being in the area I made plans with a girl I had recently met for coffee in the afternoon. Despite having spent most of my life in the Ypsilanti area, I had never been to The Ugly Mug and was excited for an opportunity to go there. So as to not distract myself from conversation, I even arrived early so I could have a few minutes to check the place out. I remember the first time I walked into the John K. King bookstore in Detroit, I had to run to the nearest shelf to avoid sensory overload from trying to take everything in at once. After a few breaths I could stand back and see where I was.

I waited at a table inside the door as she walked over from her house a few blocks away. She grabbed a cup of coffee and we walked to the back patio. If I looked at just her and the bush our table was nestled underneath, it felt like we were sitting on the back porch of a house in the country. Somehow the whole "time flies when you're having fun" adage worked in reverse as we were both surprised at how little time we spent over a couple cups of coffee. We opted for a walk down to Riverside Park, across the three-way bridge (which she called a "tridge", an amusing term that she claimed to have read somewhere, but which I'll just attribute to her own cleverness) and over to Frog Island. I had been there several times before when I volunteered to referee at soccer tournaments back in my high school days. With a few hours of time together before she had to go to work, we drove into downtown Ann Arbor. Neither of us had been to the Art Museum on campus so we stopped in to give it a look. Out front there was what appeared to be an elaborate metal swing that was as much art as it appeared to be dangerous. That didn't stop a family of children from piling onto the suspended steel "bench" and posing for a picture. We wandered around half-aimlessly and half-confused by the multi-layered floors until she had to get ready to go to work.

After dropping her off at her house, I called my friend to see what he was up to. He and his girlfriend were going to the Olive Garden for dinner and invited me along. Our waiter was cheerfully flamboyant and obviously not looking forward to a long Saturday night. We were practically assaulted by wine offerings, though my friends informed me that we could order really cheap samples that amounted to almost half a glass. Not being a big fan of Italian and even less a fan of chain restaurants, I went with something from the special insert menu: polenta crusted chicken, one of the many fine meat, pasta and cheese combinations I could've gone with. After eating we went back to my friend's apartment and waited for my roommate who was coming out to join us.

We drove to Ann Arbor and my friend's girlfriend split off to join some of her friends. In anticipation of visiting the area for the first time since February, I had built up an urge to go to Pinball Pete's. The three of us had spent many nights playing Dance Dance Revolution and Guitar Freaks back in 2005-6. When we all lived in the same apartment community on the outskirts of town, they would often join my ex-girlfriend and me for a night of arcade games, bubble tea and dollar pizza slices. Recently I've realized how much I miss such cheap, exciting activities. While we didn't see whether the Back Room pizza place was still open, we did stop at Bubble Island, somewhere I was overdue to revisit. Memories came rushing back to me like the tiny balls of tapioca that flooded my mouth with my first refreshing sip. While I instantly thought to myself to find one near Ferndale, I don't think in my mind anything will measure up to the original bubble tea.

Drinks in hand, we took a familiar walk through the Diag to State street. We thought about going to Ashley's, a place I had heard a lot about, but my friend's girlfriend called to get us and her friends together to go to a hookah bar. Now, I'm not a smoker, and the concept has always seemed kind of funny to me. We crammed into a tight hallway filled with blaring dance music in front of a large plastic window where we were to order our hookah. There being six of us, we ordered two and went to the outside patio to wait for them to be brought out. Skeptical as I was, I found it to be a pleasant experience. I noticed how the communal activity brought a sense of relaxed companionship between us as we passed around the nozzle from which we smoked. On a related note, the smoke itself was not harsh at all, so that was a plus. I put a mental check next to the "would do again" box. From there we went down the street to The Blue Leprechaun for a couple drinks before calling it a night. Back at my friend's apartment we played Street Fighter and Soul Calibur until we fell asleep. I told my friend that I was going to my parent's in the morning and might leave before he woke up. I felt kind of bad doing that, but also knew that there was no way I could sleep half the day and didn't want to wake him up just because I was up. On his couch, I believe, was the first time I comfortably slept outside of my own bed in years.

August 2010 mix: phases and stages

2010-08-01T15:47:00.001-04:00

1. Paul Simon - Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes
2. Joel Plaskett - Every Time You Leave
3. Rogue Wave - I'll Never Leave You
4. The Mighty Mighty Bosstones - Let's Face It
5. Broken Social Scene - All To All
6. Devon Williams - A Truce
7. The Radio Dept. - Never Follow Suit
8. Death Cab For Cutie - Coney Island
9. Vampire Weekend - Run
10. Blue States - Across The Wire
11. Whitey - Stay On the Outside
12. The XX - Heart Skipped A Beat
13. Spoon - Paper Tiger
14. Reverie Sound Revue - One Marathon
15. Alexander the Great - Tree of Knowledge
16. Guided by Voices - Fly Into Ashes
17. The American Analog Set - Fool Around
18. Camera Obscura - I Don't Do Crowds
19. Tahiti 80 - Get Yourself Together
20. LCD Soundsystem - All I Want

movie review: (500) Days of Summer

2010-07-30T14:26:00.005-04:00

As I write this, (500) Days of Summer is my favorite movie; most recent in a list that includes Shaun of the Dead, Fight Club and Jurassic Park. The concept is a fairly simple one: keen and sensitive boy meets aloof, gorgeous girl. The boy, Tom (played by an impeccably-dressed Joseph Gordon-Levitt), is our modern age's quintessential romantic. Raised on post-punk and a firm belief in love as life's ultimate goal, he is both successful and outcast. He has a job that, while ultimately is not his passion (architecture), provides him a little creative outlet and the means to walk the streets of Los Angeles in an incredible wardrobe of sweater vests and suit coats with an iPod to provide a soundtrack to his optimistic existence. His grounded life maintains the capacity to be completely turned on its side when Summer (the wide-eyed Zooey Deschanel) finally walks into it. The mindset he enters once they begin their nervous romance, however, seems founded on the belief that it was meant to happen all along. While she pleads with him from the outset that she is not looking for commitment, Summer toys with his emotions at every turn, revealing to him secrets that she has never before shared and trekking through the rain to his apartment to reconcile after a multi-layered argument. To Tom, this segment of his life removes him from everything he has known before and blinds him from any potential future that is not the two of them growing old at each other's side.

Tom lives and breathes in the subtleties of every moment they spend together. Each unrequited show of affection starves his dedicated heart while the rare instances of shared compassion are unduly feasted upon. In his lovesick state, he is too overcome to see their differences as reasons why they are not meant to be together, and as an audience we are absorbed into sharing his blind faith. Instead of giving in to their incompatibility, the incredible joys of how it was falling in love stay with him as benchmarks for how every moment together could and should be. What he fails to see as Summer tiptoes through their relationship is that her foresight does not cover the same territory as his.

This is a movie about how love is blind. The first time I watched it I applauded its tribute to romanticism. Last week I decided to buy the DVD and intended it to be a kind of comfort film to fall asleep to every night, basking in the lessons it teaches. After watching it for a second time, I focused more on the perspective of Summer and realized how short-lived their romance was. True, it is a huge step in her emotional maturation, as she gives more of herself to Tom than she had to anyone before. You can imagine the way she talks about him to the man she marries at the end of the film. "Oh, he was just this guy at my work that I dated for a while." A statement innocent in it's delivery, but shrouded in deeper meaning. In her mind you know that she was affected by his love, but in order to maintain her character she can never openly admit its importance, even to Tom himself. Notice how close she comes to crying as she walks away after their conversation on the bench at the end of the movie. A similar question of their relationship's significance to Tom might elicit about five minutes of "um"s and "well"s as his brain and heart fight over how to justify his very real emotional longing. By the end of the film, however, we see that Tom may be able to look back on their time together, as his little sister suggests, with an eye aware of their incompatibility and respectful of the importance their time together will always have on both of their lives.

On a personal note, I have never related to a movie character as well as Tom. From his great taste in clothes to his steadfast belief in love as the meaning of life. This movie provides a realistic look at the joys and sorrows of that existence. From the fantastic post-coital celebration scene to his depressed trip to the liquor store for orange juice, whiskey and twinkies. I will never be able to listen to "Train in Vain" without thinking of Gordon-Levitt's slurred karaoke version. The simple motion graphics provide an excellent aesthetic touch and the soundtrack compliments Tom's obvious affinity for music. This movie is the perfect love story for romantics of the twenty-first century; holding tightly to dreams of storybook romance, whether they will ever be actualized or not.

live forget

2010-07-29T12:23:00.001-04:00

Walking into the Berkley Front last night, I felt very much on my own. Unlike my usual go-to-shows-alone self I was in need of a drink. I climbed the stairs to the second floor and felt like I was walking into someone else's dream. The dark room appeared empty at first, as if the swirling soundscape that reigned over the area had forced everyone out. My eyes adjusted and I was first able to recognize the solitary figure on stage, hunched over a guitar and a multitude of effect pedals. Among the shadows at the edges of the room, faces came into focus; the other audience to this sonic event. As the only one standing fully upright, I quickly made my way to a seat at the bar. I reflexively hunched down, so as not to disturb the delicate energy that was put in place before I had arrived. Beer in hand, I migrated a few feet to a table where I could better observe what was going on uninhibited by my presence. Layers of delay and distortion made his playing seem not to match what we were hearing. He shifted through several passages of melodies before lighting the aural experiment safely back to silence.

Most of the people there I knew more through frequent 'hello's at various shows and encounters around Ferndale than honest conversation. Whenever I run into them I tend to just clam up and feel happy to be in attendance. They are long-time friends, co-workers and bandmates, and I'm just the new guy in town. This time I made an effort to convince these people that I'm not just a nut job who randomly appears at places to make people uncomfortable with too many questions and not enough social graces. Two dollar cans of PBR as social lubricant, indeed. I didn't coin that phrase, but even before I started drinking I had given it merit in my mind.

The following act was a band called Forget, whose only constant is its two dedicated members. The first time I saw them was last October, and they had so many accompanying players that half of them couldn't fit onto the stage. I was the only person in attendance that was not a musician, though they tried to get me to play with them anyway. It sounded like a great idea, but I balked and said I would watch them once before jumping into the fray. Their performances are more like jam sessions, with each musician feeding of the other's cues and adding their own sound where they are inspired. What results is not so much a structured song as it is a moment of artistic collaboration. There are no plans, only constant input.

Last night's show was a tight composition. None of the additional members (two guitarists, a bassist and a second drummer) had played with Forget before. Haphazard tuning became the beginnings of a song as a bass line prevailed through the various drum tests and knob fiddlings. Layers of rhythm were added and dissonant melodies filled in all the empty spaces. Their sound would swell and ebb, eventually removing many elements until the bass line shifted and the energy mounted into another open ended experiment of artists working together. Before they took the stage, I struck up conversation with one of the guitarists and told him that I was starting a band with a friend of mine. He told me how important it is to have that kind of creative output for everyday inspiration. I commented on how attempting to perform alongside someone, I've become aware of the necessity to stick to your own creative guns and say when you do or do not want something a certain way. That push and pull of ideas is, I believe, what can make working with someone so challenging but even more rewarding when it yields a product that all involved can enjoy.

alone, not alone

2010-07-27T11:28:00.002-04:00

I now share my home with two of my longest-standing friends. Growing up an only child, I am more accustomed to having several hours of solitude every day. Sometimes an overabundance of peace and quiet will keep me stationed there, unwilling to get out. At work yesterday, I had an edit suite all to myself, where I surfed the internet and re-digitized footage of my friend's wedding and reception. One of these days I'm going to put it all together into a DVD that I've already planned out in my head. In true Monday fashion, I instead opted for crossword puzzles and composing my latest idea for a mixtape.

When I returned home after work, I refused to let myself sit down and instead went for a jog around the neighborhood. In the year I've lived in my current house, my route has been fairly consistent, but recently I've been exploring other parts of adjacent neighborhoods. Oak Park and Pleasant Ridge provide for excellent architecture-gawking. I can't decide whether I like the charming modesty of the former or the conventional affluence of the latter. I could see myself living in either some day. For the time, I am quite content in Ferndale's somewhere-in-middle, but-we're-more-of-a-party-town feel.

My roommates were cooking dinner when I got back. Even if our tiny kitchen wasn't completely overtaken by preparations for a lasagna, I had nothing to make for myself. I set out with an empty stomach and a taste for something reasonably healthy. For the third or fourth day in a row I walked to Western Market, which is like five minutes from my house, and browsed the prepared foods section. Maybe it was the yellow hue of the curried tofu salad that caught my eye, or the memory of my neighbor bringing it to the fundraiser potluck I hosted last October. Three quarters of a pound and a cup of pre-cut fruit later and I was ready to label myself as an obvious bachelor and a less-obvious adult. The yellow sauce that covered it had more of a mayonnaise taste than I remembered, but it was easier to stomach than the Tiger's hitless performance that I watched as I ate.

After the game, I walked to The Emory where I was meeting some friends I hadn't seen in months. Time flew as we rambled on about various happenings in our lives. Highlights of the conversation included stories of physical injuries and a midget Jehovah's Witness being locked in a closet for eight hours after an autistic child mistook him for a troll. We made plans to get together with my roommates for dinner at Kuhnhenn in Warren sometime in the near future, another brewery whose growler I need to add to my collection. I told them about this blog, so I'm only a little self-conscious that I'm writing about someone who I expect will be reading this. Allow me to clear the awkward air by firmly asserting that I regret not making an effort to see them both sooner. I was completely surprised when I discovered that it was almost 1:00 AM before I got home.

movie review: Inception

2010-07-26T09:30:00.003-04:00

First thing's first: if you haven't seen this movie, go and do it now.

Alright? Good.

If you hadn't, this would be the point where I'd say "spoilers below", but more than that I'm going to expound on the greatness of a movie based on concepts that absolutely everyone can relate to while at the same time can keep the brightest of young minds (read: me and my roommates) tied up in hours of appreciative conversation. General consensus is correct that most big-budget movies these days are rightfully worthless for having more explosions and gratuitous sex scenes than intelligent plot points, but Inception is an example of what high-end movie making can be. One thing I didn't really care for was that, like Nolan's previous blockbuster The Dark Knight, there was an over-abundance of staccato action scenes and unnecessary gun fights. Towards the film's climax, I can credit the many senseless snow battle cutaways for breaking up the pace of three overlapping realities simultaneously coming to a head. But really, someone's mind is being subverted and the best defense it can throw in our heroes way is truckloads of automatic-rifle-toting henchmen? Set their clothing on fire or something.

When my Friday started, Inception was one of those "Oh yeah, I would love to see that if someone else I know wants to" kind of movies. Three hours at work and I took care of all of the odds and ends I had on my plate. Seeing my roommate on Facebook, I messaged him to propose the idea of lunch at Ashoka, my favorite Indian buffet, and a trip to Goodrich Canton Cinema. Before I knew it I was asking permission to take the afternoon off. My other roommate agreed to tag along, and the three of us were on the road just before a thunderstorm swept through the area. We listened to Paul Simon's Graceland and slowly made our way through patches of standing water on 696 and past idiotic truck drivers on 275.

There are simply lots of things to enjoy about this movie. Attentive camerawork, intelligent use of expensive CGI, Joseph Gordon-Levitt's wardrobe, solid acting all-around and a complex, interesting and original story that's not too difficult to follow. At the same time, there are a lot of ways to interpret the story. It purposefully creates more questions than it answers. My guess is that when Cobb tests the new sedative they are going to use, he doesn't actually wake from that dream and the rest of the movie is his imagination playing out the mission. You'll notice that in a scene directly following the serum trial, Cobb attempts to confirm reality using his totem but is interrupted by Saito.

There is enough talk about this movie to keep its IMDb page heavily trafficked for a few months. My response to the film's ending was an unrestrained "What the fuck?", but now I understand it was the best ending available. If after seeing the film's final scene you don't immediately launch into speculative discussion with the nearest person, there's something wrong with you. What makes this movie so great is how many ways it can be interpreted. I suggest you make your own observation.

album review: What Happened

2010-07-23T11:30:00.001-04:00

I was told of this album by one of Dog & Panther's members, a friend who freelanced at my work. Before we had a chance to meet, I was informed that my twin was in the building; a tall guy in a flannel shirt. I noticed him drinking a mango Kombucha and complimented him on his choice. Until then, I had a feeling I was the only person who drank those things. We nervously made our way through small talk, and a couple weeks later he took over some work on a Final Cut project that I had to be pulled away from. After the clients left, we bantered about our recent favorite bands. At the time, I was big into Foals and he told me I would really like Maps & Atlases. He was unimpressed when I played him some Criteria. I didn't think our musical tastes were great matches, but we had our overlaps. He told me that he was in a band that was was putting together an album, and when he played me part of a song that was still a work in progress, I was intrigued and asked for updates as the album neared completion. He also touted Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! and we watched some of an episode. It was a little too disjointed for me to get into at the time. Maybe one day.

About a month ago he contacted me to let me know that the album was available for download. I was impressed with the supplemental video promos they created to coincide with the release: one for the free download of "Skin Cloud" and a second for the album's realease, featuring the honest, believable and uplifiting sentiments of the intro track "Love Make":

“Don’t believe what anyone says
you’re not alone, you’re strong
you have love to give so give it away
and let go of the wrongs you’ve done
you have today, now make your life your own.”

There are obvious comparisons to be made between Dog & Panther and the Postal Service, so let me get them out of the way early. One of my roommates, upon hearing about thirty seconds of one song, asked me whether it was Death Cab For Cutie. I laughed and told him that it was in fact my friend's band. For me, the comparisons to Ben Gibbard's vocals are irrelevant. While I agree to the parity to the Postal Service, it's more because of their place in the evolution of my own musical tastes. Bands have come and gone through my stereo, and at present I recognize that what turns my ear can be easily defined as a witty mixture of obscure catchiness and heartfelt ambiance. The style of music that best encapsulates this combination is what I call "Indie Pop Electronica". Bands that take straight-up indie rock; post-emo (post-punk) and fearfully transient; and try to overcome their peer's bullshit musical filler with whatever they can conceive to supplement it. Bands like Islands, The Helio Sequence, Halloween, Alaska, The Go Find, Enon and The Notwist take music that would otherwise be merely substantial and turn it into something memorable. The hooks are there, though you didn't quite expect them. Dog & Panther manage to take that thinking a step further and forego the rock foundation in favor of something porous and emotional. Instruments are as unrecognizable in listening as they are commonplace outside of the studio. This is experimental music created not from the bottom up, but from the top down. Where a guitar might carry a verse, in place are effected vocal wailings. Drum machine rhythms come alive alongside unmistakably organic claps and chirps. Each song breathes a mortality that isn't just heard; it is felt. The lyrics are the warmth coursing through the veins of every track. They beg you to listen, to acknowledge their existence and allow them to live and run free.

They cry out: "You should do the same."

something nice to say

2010-07-22T14:28:00.001-04:00

Mitch Clem has created some of the finest art I've encountered after a decade of exploring the internet. In high school, the first time I felt inspired to create my own t-shirt it was to be a reproduction of a "Nothing Nice To Say" strip. Self-proclaimed as "the world's FIRST online punk comic", it seemed like the natural thing for an adolescent discovering the roots of his favorite music to be absorbed by. I proceeded to join a forum he had started for fans of the comic and sent him a message asking for permission to print and wear his work. At that time he was still an internet legend in my eyes and I was humbled when he responded that he had absolutely no problem with it. While I never followed through on printing the shirt, I attempted to insert myself into the community of elite punk rock music nerds. It was on that forum that I first discovered the concept of mix trades, where a group of forum members send a stack of CDs and some shipping money to a willing moderator who then mails everyone else's mix to each participant. Looking back, my contribution was an absolute disaster. An attempt to assert some musical snobbery with unknown local bands was foolishly supplemented with all-too-well-known and radically un-punk rock songs that were in my eyes "still worth listening to" (Bright Eyes, The Germs... Spineshank for crying out loud!) There was something wrong with me then that thankfully isn't wrong with me now. As an incredible silver lining, the mixes I received introduced me a lot of great music. Two particular songs are now among my favorites of all-time, The Bonaduce's "A Separate Lid Behind Closed Eyes" and Kiss Me Deadly's "Epicure". Check them out. They still give me goosebumps they're so good.

As I grew older I began to recognize Mitch as a regular human being. I followed as Nothing Nice To Say underwent style changes, and as he introduced other shorter-lived comics. His autobiographical strips were particularly enjoyable, and I dreamt of having a life so easily suited to hilarious storytelling. The completely random and completely adorable "Kittens!" is simply one of the best things ever to appear on the internet.

For a long time I remember rumblings about a Nothing Nice To Say book which was to be published. Mitch's LiveJournal feed would provide me with (besides humorous and enlightening rants) updates about the layout and distributor, and eventually that he would be going back and redrawing older strips to match the current black and white, four panel format. My nerdiness could barely be contained when the day came for placing preorders. Now, that book sits on the client desk of an edit suite at my work. I brought it in along with some magazines in an attempt mark my territory as a future editor. While other people have been occupying that room, one day I'll have my own. With my name on the door, my own artwork on the walls and a stereo setup with music playing all the time. And my Nothing Nice To Say book on the coffee table.

your stars and your stripes and

2010-07-21T11:35:00.005-04:00

When I first started at my work, I was an intern in the shipping department. We were at one end of a large building, away from the edit suites I hoped to one day work in. Our end housed an enormous tape library, a tech room full of tape decks for duplication, our shipping office and a Media Center, where duplication orders and library organization took place. On my first day, a girl there commented on the pair of Adidas Sambas I was wearing. "New shoes for a new job?", she asked. They were in fact new, though my nervousness froze me in making a friendly response. I think she thought I was weird.

Over my time there I recognized her as the person I had the most in common with. She was only a couple years older than me, and really into photography. She didn't work there very long, but after she left we kept in touch. She moved into a house with her friend in Berkley and I became friends with her and her boyfriend. When I moved to Ferndale in June of 2008, they were among few friends that I didn't (currently) work with who lived in the area. She let me borrow her digital SLR camera when I took a road trip around Michigan's thumb. We saw a few movies together, had dinner now and then and I even helped her with an art project that involved driving out to her roommate's parent's house and setting a scene in the middle of a field of her roommate wearing antlers and sitting in a pile of telephones. That day was in early Autumn, and while we were surrounded by trees of changing colors, I remember the atmosphere as being a permeating grey. This was not a depressing thing as much as it was inspiring. The Fall has always been my favorite time of year. I marveled at the elaborate concept of her project, and as we rode on her roommate's four-wheeler to where we were shooting, I was overcome with an idea for making a film whose backdrop was an October wood. The song "We're Computerizing and We Just Don't Need You Anymore" by the American Analog Set filled my head as the perfect song for an interlude scene of bare branches in the waning daylight.

A few months ago she announced that she was moving to Chicago. I hadn't seen her for some time when I went over to her house for a joint birthday party for her and her roommate in May. I recognized a few people that I had met through them before, and while I didn't stay very long I had a lot of fun and felt very welcomed in their house, a feeling I don't often get.

I knew that she was planning a going away party the week before she officially left, but a few weeks before that she invited me to see Rogue Wave at The Magic Stick. I thought she might have seen one of the two posters I have from the times I saw them at the Blind Pig back in 2005. As it turns out, we had both been fans of them for as long, unaware that the other was. We had both also disregarded their third album and had mixed feelings about their newest, Permalight. All the same, the evening made for an excellent chance for the two of us to spend time together before she moved. We had dinner at Noble Fish (we can no longer be sushi buddies!) and arrived just in time to see Javelins, who had been added as an opener after we'd decided to go (an excellent coincidence.)

Rogue Wave put on a good show. Zach seemed very smiley and into putting on an enthusiastic performance. It was inspiring to see, as I read an article recently about how he had woken up one morning unable to move, a result of slipped discs in his neck. After recovering months later, he started working on the new album which was to be upbeat and danceable: an ode to his recovery. The show was one of the few I've been to where I've felt noticeably older than almost everyone else there. We were both happy to hear them play not only "Kicking The Heart Out" from Out Of The Shadow, but five songs from Descend Like Vultures. They even played "Medicine Ball", which for a time was one of my favorite songs to put on the jukebox at The Loving Touch.

One thing her and I share is a feeling of age in our mutual want to go to sleep at an early hour. She always laughs and calls herself an old person. I try and tell her that there's nothing wrong with wanting to wake up early in the morning. It was midnight when we left The Magic Stick and I yawned the whole way home. She lamented on it being her last chance to see a concert in Detroit, but even after she moves I'll keep her friendship and take it with me to every show.

staycation

2010-07-19T14:34:00.003-04:00

For the record, I hate the word "staycation", while what it implies is something fantastic and liberating. The idea is simply taking time off from work without the intention to spend it away from home. Last week I did just that, without a necessity to wake up at a particular time in the morning or dedicate myself to any specific tasks during the day. Regardless, I busied myself with various chores. Monday I bought new windows for the upstairs of my house, Wednesday I had cable installed and Thursday I cleaned out the kitchen cabinets and started making preparations for a garage sale on Saturday.

Friday was the real "vacation" part of my vacation. I went with my friend to the beach on Belle Isle and sat out in the sun for hours. We made a sand castle and a giant face in front of our beach towel. It started as a nose, a mouth and a couple eyes. Eventually teeth were added in the form of many tiny rocks and two longer pointy rocks which turned him into a vampire. Next came a chin which we circled around to give him a bald head. We realized we had forgotten ears, and when standing over the blanket I drew line for a neck which made the face appear to be peeking over it. As a final touch, we added fingers of two hands to the edge of the blanket which gave the illusion that he was a giant climbing out from behind. We named him Cornelius, and eventually had to say goodbye, aware that he would likely be destroyed within an hour, but with high hopes that he would at least be noticed and appreciated.

After packing up we drove into the city and had a delicious dinner at Tom's Oyster Bar. We ate on the rooftop patio, where the wind kept blowing around the tent whose poles were sitting right next to our table and kept jumping around like giant, stomping legs. We then walked down to Hart Plaza and along the RiverWalk. The sun was just setting and the weather was perfect. It made a picturesque scene that I wished I had my camera for.

The next morning we got up extra early to set up for a garage sale at my house. We were joined by one of my friends from bike club who brought over a couple tables worth of things to sell. While we didn't have the crazy morning rush that I expected, we had a fairly constant stream of people throughout the day, with enough lulls that I could pick us up thai for lunch and for us to put my roommates in charge so the two of us could walk to Dairy Queen. There was certainly an interesting assortment of characters that came through, and we had so much fun that we're planning to do it again this weekend. After we packed everything up at 5:00 we hung out on my back porch and thought about what to do with the evening. My friend from bike club that she had just met was having a housewarming, and I invited her along. We thought about spending an hour or so there, but ended up staying for several. On the way in, we ran into one of her friends that she hadn't seen in months. We hung out with her on the front porch and talked about books (most of the attendees were Borders employees, after all.) A number of my other friends from bike club showed up later, and we talked to them for a while. Eventually we decided to head back home, and on the way ran into my roommates and some of their friends coming out of The Loving Touch and on their way to Rosie O' Grady's.

Once we got back to my house, I put on LCD Soundsystem's This Is Happening and we decided to wait and watch for my friends to arrive after the bars closed. Earlier that day my neighbors had given us a wooden bench to try and sell at the garage sale which we had left on the side of the street. We had the great idea of moving it back into the yard, on an angle looking down the street and just within earshot of the stereo in the living room. There we stayed for several hours. We watched as everyone returned with a case of cheap beer and made a b-line for the beer pong table my friend had set up in the back room. Every now and then someone would come outside to talk to us, but for the most part we were comfortably attached to the bench which we weren't going to be able to throw away now. Before we knew it, the sky was starting to get light. It had been years since I had watched the sunrise, and we kept our seats as the daylight arrived. We needed coffee if we were going to stay awake any longer, so we went out for breakfast. Coffee wasn't enough to keep us from practically falling asleep in our chairs after we'd finished eating, so we both went home and right to bed.

The rest of the day was pretty much a wash. Consecutive nights of little sleep had turned my brain to mush. Thankfully, around 10:00 it became hard to keep my eyes open and I managed ten hours of recovery rest. I thought that might make getting up for work this morning easier, but it didn't. Any return from a long time off is difficult, but this time extended far beyond remembering technical procedures. Give me a day or two and I'll be back to my regular-blog-updating self. Like everyone does now and then, I needed that time off.

bananarama

2010-07-14T12:34:00.001-04:00

Make yourself a list of things you want to do before you die. Include something simple yet memorable, like going an entire day eating nothing but bananas. The inability to concentrate when your good friend takes you to a secret jazz club you'd been dying to see will be worth it, to place that little check next to one of your aspirations. The cashier that you'll approach with three bunches will surely think you're making a bake sale's worth of banana bread, rather than binging on potassium. Don't feel like you have to eat a day's worth of calories either. After the sixth or so, you'll be sick of the taste and it will basically become fasting anyway. When you wake up the next morning to give your friend a ride, your coffee will taste better than any you've had before. The air will seem fresher; the chocolate chunks in your cereal: sweeter. You'll never want to touch a banana again. Until Wednesday, when it's time for another day-off breakfast over a crossword puzzle.

If you find yourself enjoying some delicious mexican food with a margarita for lunch, savor it that much more. Window-shopping around Royal Oak and sitting on your front porch with your friend as she smokes a cigarette will be all the better, too. When you and your friends have a double feature movie night of Breakin' and Breakin' 2; Electric Boogaloo, Turbo's moves will be that much smoother. The hospital scene in the latter movie, with the dancing nurses and the magic healing power of music will be even more fantastic. You set your mind to something. Now, you can always say that you did it.

Baar Bazaar

2010-07-11T21:07:00.000-04:00

The renovated Ferndale library opened Saturday for a "Community Preview" which I missed most of, but showed up to just in time to catch one of my favorite local bands The Pop Project put on a performance. As they prepared to play, they made a humorous statement that kind of encapsulated what was surely on everyone's mind. Having a rock band play in a setting that asks for constant quiet is certainly a paradox, and musing over "whether we're too loud or too quiet" only added to the quirky tension of the scene. As they opened with "Totally Awesome"; a song about a caterpillar turning into a butterfly; there was palpable nerdiness in the combination of venue and musical style. I ran into some friends from bike club who joined me at one of the tables scattered around the "multipurpose room", as the large, welcoming space at the front of the building was coming to be referred to. The addition was placed right in front of the library's old facade, whose carved stone was maintained in the new library's interior. I will be excited to return frequently to check out movies faster than Netflix can send them to me and perhaps some Vonnegut novels that I can never find in used book stores.

I walked home and then drove to my friend's house so the two of us could drive down to the Majestic. Her boyfriend's band Mod Orange was playing their first ever show as part of Baar Bazaar, a craft sale being held in the Majestic Theatre. We had some pizza from Sgt. Pepperoni's and met up with her friend, a German who had moved the the States. They talked about how the dialect of Southern Germany can be compared to that in the Southern United States in it's ability to make the person sound unintelligent. Around 9:00 we walked over to the bazaar where I ran into the lady who runs Sloe Gin Fizz. She is one of my favorite artists, and I have two works by her, one hanging in my living room and a second that she made large sized especially for me which I haven't decided where to hang yet. I showed her pictures of the frame my dad helped me make for it. I wasn't

really in the mood to shop for anything, so I just hung around until Mod Orange played. I made the comment that the Theatre's stage was quite a large one for a band's first show to be played, but they put on a worthy performance. I look forward to seeing them again, perhaps in a dirty bar that deserves to be smoke filled, if only to give it the proper gritty atmosphere. Before walking out the door I ran into some friends from bike club who had been next door at the Magic Stick and were stopping over to check out the fair. While we talked, the song "Cheap Like Sebastian" from Apostle Of Hustle's National Anthem Of Nowhere (my all-time favorite album) came on, and I was completely surprised and delighted. On the drive home my July mix played The Feelies' song "Let's Go", and I felt impelled to put in on repeat. Once I arrived I went for a walk and listened to the song some more. It played perfectly with the summer night calmly blowing around me. Several times this year I have had the feeling of wanting to just spread my arms and feel the air rushing past. It is a feeling of life that is magical and unforgettable. The kind you want to last but know it only feels so right because it never will.

Saturday halftime

2010-07-10T15:35:00.001-04:00

As the first of nine days without having to work, I expected today to be overwhelmingly busy. Some friends from bike club organized an all-day, across Detroit ride that was going to start at 10:00 AM. I knew I wouldn't want to start off with them, though I thought about meeting up with them later after seeing who showed up to Mobil. While waiting there with Alex, I realized that I didn't really want to ride today. I stopped inside John K. King and bought a couple Vonnegut books and David Sedaris's Barrel Fever. We rode home, walked up to the Food Patch for some groceries and I went into work so I could watch the third place World Cup game. After this I'll have a couple hours to relax before a busy evening.

movie review: Greenberg

2010-07-08T19:52:00.003-04:00

A couple weeks ago at a bike club barbecue a girl was talking about the movie Greenberg, and how it was good, though a little depressing. Without having seen the movie, I akined it to The Weatherman, believing from previews I had seen that it would be very modern, realistic and without a fairytale ending. I first saw a trailer online and was immediately intrigued. It looked like one of those newer "indie" films like Sideways or (500) Day Of Summer that you can tell will be amazing before you watch it. When I learned that James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem had been asked to compose the score, I seriously set a plan in my mind to catch this movie at any theater I could find it. A hectic spring kept me from splurging on a ten dollar ticket at the Main Art in Royal Oak, but this reminder just happened to coincide with a screening at the Magic Bag's "Brew & View". Last night one of my roommates and I grabbed a couple handfuls of quarters and walked downtown. On the way we happened to run into the girl from the barbecue and told her where we were headed. She told us that the movie would be sad, and that we would fall in love with the female lead.

The two guys at the door to the Magic Bag always get on my nerve because they set up right inside so that you have to stand in the threshold with the door propped on your back as they simultaneously ask for your ID and the cover charge. I was amused at the disgruntled look they gave us as we paid in change.

What struck me most about Greenberg was the sincerity of the various character's reactions to very serious and emotional situations. Most movies I watch looking for traits I can relate to, but it was interesting that while I did feel many connections, they didn't come consistently from one character. The male and female lead were both dynamic while being resistant to change in very believable and honest ways. I felt parts of myself and friends in both of them, which kept either from being just like anyone I know. After the film I was left with a sense of confidence that what I saw was a true snapshot of these character's lives. While the film's open ending doesn't give you a sense of "this is where the characters are going" you know that, just like everyone, they will continue to face hardships and opportunities for growth. Not everything will work out, but life will.

crystal mountains

2010-07-08T00:08:00.000-04:00

The keyboard riffs in this song are so simple and catchy; a song I regret not being able to have in mp3 form. The two members of Silverghost are my friends on Facebook, though I've hardly held much conversation with either of them. I still intend to see them several more times before this year is over, though not at Fucking Awesome Fest which doesn't look like it will be as "fucking awesome" as I'd hoped when the lineup was announced today. They seem like really cool people, and maybe in time we'll say more than brief 'hello's at the bar. Anyway, this video is pretty rad. And you can hear the song really well.

Tigers game, 7/06/2010

2010-07-07T14:59:00.003-04:00

A lady at my work frequently sells extra Tigers tickets. I try and go to at least a game or two ever year, and yesterday was my second of the season. We played the Orioles and I took my friend who I had road tripped to Maryland with in December. I had never been to Baltimore before, but our brief time there for dinner and a few drinks made me want to return someday. Before leaving we grabbed some coffee at a place called Metropolitan that seemed particularly interesting.

We arrived just before the game started and were sitting down with a couple of hotdogs before the first pitch. Our seats were comfortably out of the sun in the right field bleachers, an area that made for great people watching. Lots of hits but few runs made the game go slowly. After the fifth inning we got up to walk around. I love just being in Comerica Park. While I can only compare it to Tiger Stadium, its openness makes for a great atmosphere. I told my friend that I don't think going to a ball game could ever get old. As we explored, the Tigers gave up three runs. We returned to our seats just before the seventh-inning stretch and saw Baltimore score another before the Tigers started their late comeback. We saw them pull to within one and at the end of the eighth left our seats to walk towards the exit. We stopped behind home plate and peaked from under the roof to see Cabrera hit the game-tying homerun in the bottom of the ninth. The best part was the crowd's reaction. Where we were standing we couldn't see the ball in the air, but as soon as he hit it everyone erupted in cheer. We waited to see the end of the ninth inning, but were tired and left before the tenth. I drove us up Woodward where we listened to the end of the game and Damon's walk-off homerun before going home.

One of my roommates had continued B-movie night at my house with a couple of our bike club friends, but they had left by the time I got home. He was just getting ready to go to Ye Olde Saloon where our friend was having her birthday party. I opted for the responsible action and went to bed early. My other roommate had brought over an air conditioner for me to put in upstairs, and while it keeps the room comfortable enough to sleep in, the hum it creates all night I think is keeping me from a really deep sleep.

happy America day

2010-07-06T09:41:00.001-04:00

Sunday I drove to my grandparent's cottage in Pinckney. Most of my summers growing up were spent swimming in the lake and eating candy with my cousin. In reality it was probably only a small portion of time, but it was such a highlight that I remember it clearer than the days spent watching Nickelodeon and playing baseball in the yard. As I got older, I became more concerned with the muddy, seaweed covered bottom of the lake and the off chance of stepping on a clam. Family get-togethers centered more around what else in my life was distracting me or trying to be calm around my relatives. This year I arrived before anyone else, and within fifteen minutes I was floating in the water, rediscovering just another thing my life has been missing.

That night I rode my bike to Rackham golf course where the city of Huntington Woods was having their fireworks display. I was against the fence, close enough that the explosions of color completely filled my field of vision.

Cantina Diablos

2010-07-03T11:37:00.003-04:00

For the second week in a row my Friday at work was short. This time my boss rewarded me for staying until 1:00 AM on Wednesday night by letting me not use any personal time and go home at noon. I was running on a few nights of less-than-normal sleep, so I relaxed on the couch and had a Flight of the Conchords marathon. After finishing the first season I decided to go out for dinner and to watch the Tigers game.

The great minds behind Rosie O' Grady's (really, though it's not my scene, you've gotta give them credit for such a successful place) recently opened a Mexican restaurant in the building of the original Rosie O' Grady's named Cantina Diablos. I love mexican food, though I had a hunch this place would be of the over-priced, Americanized variety you'll find at suburban chain restaurants. I took a seat at the bar beside all of the couples waiting on tables. It was nice to see a Michigan beer on tap (North Peak's Diabolical IPA), but I opted for the Goose Island 312. Of course, there were televisions everywhere, including nine behind the bar. I felt absolutely assaulted when I saw the only three things I would want to watch: the Tigers game, an abbreviated World Cup replay and Wheel of Fortune (followed by Jeopardy!) While my attention shifted back and forth, mainly focused on the dramatic Ghana versus Uruguay game, I ordered some chicken nachos. They were okay. Nothing special. A large family waiting for a table stationed themselves beside me at the bar. A lady had her child with her, and when the girl pointed at her wine she responded that it was "yucky." It was adorable. Someone at a table behind me was celebrating their birthday, so the restaurant set some ice cream on fire.

Everything about the place has a neon red glow to it. Behind the bar there was a row of blended margarita dispensers, like the Slurpee machines at a Seven-Eleven. It is certainly a popular place for a weekend dinner or a nice first date for late-twenty-somethings. Time will tell whether people deem it worthy of multiple visits. I did not have a bad experience, but I don't imagine I'll come back that often. For good food, I'd rather go somewhere more authentic. For watching the Tigers, I'd rather visit friends at Sakana or The Loving Touch.

This morning I decided to take advantage of my work's big screen projector and come in to watch the Argentina versus Germany match. After Italy's terrible performance, I switched to rooting for the Germans. They took the lead three minutes into the game off an excellent free kick and while writing this they scored their second and third goals without an answer from Argentina. I'm feeling confident that I picked a winner.

TGIF

2010-07-02T09:09:00.002-04:00

July 2010 mix: grab hold the control

2010-07-01T20:34:00.002-04:00

1. Figurine - Pswd:stdum / Rewind
2. Holy Ghost! - Hold On
3. The Magnetic Fields - The Village in the Morning
4. Gorillaz - Last Living Souls
5. Islands - No You Don't
6. Love-Cars - Man of the Month
7. XTC - Knuckle Down
8. Deer Tick - Ashamed
9. Fake Problems - There Are Times
10. MiceCars - Heretical
11. Jets To Brazil - Sweet Avenue
13. Family of the Year - Treehouse
13. Caroline - All I Need
14. Dog & Panther - Skin Cloud
15. Holiday Shores - Phones Don't Feud
16. The Ivory Coast - Daily Routine
17. Alkaline Trio - Clavicle
18. The Feelies - Let's Go
19. The Futureheads - A to B
20. The Go Find - Running Mates
21. Zero Zero - D Minus
22. Spoon - The Mystery Zone

Track one marks the first time I have mixed two tracks together for a monthly mix: Figurine's instrumental interlude "Pswd:stdum" and "Rewind", which on the album Heartfelt play together, which I crossfaded so the crowd cheer of the first song overlaps the intro to the second. I had intended to spend yesterday evening composing this mix in the upstairs of my house where I just recently moved my bedroom, now that I will have two roommates. Instead, I was asked to edit a pitch video and, unable to pass up the opportunity, was at work 'til 1:00 AM.

Hard to believe that 2010 is already half over. Onward, upward and into the future.
Grab hold the control.