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Sad Blogger
, 24.11.12 at Saturday, November 24, 2012, in
(THIS WAS MUCH HARDER THAN THE OTHERS!) Encumbered--or perhaps endowned--with Elephantitis of the extremities, Esmeralda Eenpalu is an excellent example of an enlarged Estonian. Exuding an ethereal elegance extrinsic to equivalent episodes, she enjoys her existence enthusiastically and effortlessly. Every evening Esmeralda would eagerly embark on the earnest enterprise of editing her estranged Ethan's eulogy, an elaborately engineered epitaph explicating his egotisitc and exiguous existence. Eventually, exhausted and expired and experiencing evident ennui, Esmeralda would extract her euphemism and escort her essence to an evanescent end.
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Happy Blogger
, 23.11.12 at Friday, November 23, 2012, in
I love dreams
I love that reality is a dream and dreams are reality, at least that's how I feel most of the time.
I feel crazy. But crazy is perfect, and fucked up is perfect, so I will be perfect
I always say I just write thoughts- but as my crazy poet friend always says "thoughts are poetry, everything is poetry" I might as well admit that I have written another thing-a-ma-bob-that-I-have-problems-defining
the world where we live
in parallel skies we sit together
in parallel rooms we drink tea
in the delta waters we find infinite time
it is easy to
get found with you
here, things aren't complex
here, things find themselves
here, I don't worry that we don't collide
in that place
where we should belong
I hold onto reflections, intentions, perfection
I hold onto embraces, those traces, space
I hold on so hard
that in waking makes me raw
you're disguised as the air
you're so gone that you're there
but I know you're waiting
by the
delta waters
there, we resume where we left off
there, we disregard earth's imprisonment
there by the delta waters
is the
world where we live
Yet another vague look into the depths of my dilemma.
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Sad Blogger
, 23.10.12 at Tuesday, October 23, 2012, in
Now and then I bang out a poem that I feel might actually be worth sharing or even showing off. But that happens fairly infrequently in proportion to the amount of time I spend trying to write poetry or write anything, really. The creature below is not really the gem I was hoping it would be, but the short series of Emo-Kev Smodcast episodes that recently came out have got me wanting to have some sort of record of all the stupid shit that I've cranked out in my attempts to be creative or profound or unique or whatever. I do have other writing saved here and at home that might be worthy of self deprecating analysis someday, but at the moment I feel proud of most of it. This poem, however, I think is particularly pretentious and pontificating. It reads a lot like a child trying very hard to sound like a reflective grown up with grown up thoughts and observations. I mean if it's even a little good, then go me. But if it's as bad as it probably is, then I can't wait to go back and read this someday and cringe at my hopelessness.
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Happy Blogger
, 9.10.12 at Tuesday, October 09, 2012, in
Wow. It has been too long.
I wish I could apologize, however I have my reasons.
Let's just say September was too much for too many reasons.
Vancouver, School, Vancouver, School.
I love most my classes. Music History is another story. I'm working on it though.
I love my contemporary poetry class. It probably helps that my teacher is strangely attractive.
I went and saw Kimbra at the Commodore Ballroom.
It was not a concert, but a real life fantasy for me.
I was so close I could see her sweat, and what appeared to be paint on her arms.
I was in a trance. I could not stop staring at her. I was so focused that I completely missed the lesbian girls have a falling out, and some drunk guy with a hat stealing one of the lesbians away.
The band that opened for her were incredible. The Stepkids have it going on. They really do.
The bass player stole my heart. His bass lines and grooves were too much to handle. I have never felt so inferior to a bass player ever. What a beautiful mess!
I like writing poetry.
Although I recognize most of it is fairly depressing.
They are just things. Thoughts going through my mind.
I enjoy being by myself and clearing my head, however the clarity can be scary.
I can't decide what I like better, being in a consistent state of fog or in a state of scary acceptance.
This was the most recent one I wrote. It's just my brain thinking too far ahead and being all hypothetical and what not. I don't know. I figured I would share. This is is a nice place.
Shocking Petrified Terrified, maybe Abrupt like that kid in classthat won't leave you alone. And how do you cope? You don't You wear the mask, like a wig on your bald head, pretending you are okay.
I remember Kindergarten I remember way back when we wore wigs for fun I remember cheating off your social test We were the only ones to get 100% I wore the mask of your brilliance
You asked me if I could take it away k(no)w I tried. I mean, who knows really? We can ask Him all the questions though there are few a little suggestions
Hard like a diamond pill I can't even imagine swallowing There is one this I do know, is the difference between giving up and letting go.
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Sad Blogger
, 18.9.12 at Tuesday, September 18, 2012, in
As a nail biter since the age of three, I've never clipped my fingernails before. I mean I have immaculate toes and I've been taking care of them since I was maybe eleven, the age it started becoming uncool for your parents to care about you or touch you. But with regards to my fingers, those nails have been chewed down to the quick for the past eighteen-almost-nineteen years. Of course I had short periods during which my mother plied me with an assortment of BITE-B-GONE or CHEW-NO-MORE products but I always developed an immunity to them relatively swiftly and my nails were back to their usual haggard nature. So it's quite a big deal for me to have not even touched them for the past two months. It seems like such a simple thing, but I'm constantly in a panic over every little detail of these newfound extensions of my body. They seem so tough, but the slightest bend in the right circumstance is the most painful thing in the world. They also get DIRTY! Like nobody seems to talk about that. You always hear about 'breaking a nail' and how inconvenient that is, but at no point in my life have I heard the woeful tale of the dirt under the nails. It's constantly there. Like every twenty minutes I have to stop everything or this unsightly build-up is just gathering there, waiting for somebody to come along and notice how poorly I groom myself. Why does no one speak of this? Is it some sort of fingernail-owner taboo? Is there maybe some sort of network of catacombs where all the anguishing fingernailians convene to bemoan the soiled state of their prized digit caps? Like sure, I remember watching my brother getting his nails inspected in Cub Scouts but that made it seem like he just had to wash his nails out once a week. If that! If you only have to scrub out your nails once a week to keep them pristine, you'd have to imagine just letting them be for a couple weeks would still leave them looking at least decent. Only after maybe a month or so of serious neglect would they end up looking like rusted bear traps. But no, regular intervals throughout the DAY. All of the days. Always and ever. I feel now--being as I've taken a sentence that I'd already written and made it into the title--that I should actually write a short story about the Woeful Tale of the Dirt Under the Nails. It sounds like a Nate the Great story or something of the like. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Day 749 For the forty-eighth week in a row, the sky was a dark, disquieting stockade stretched out low over the rolling flesh hills of the Index Finger Plains. The Dirt silently scanned the horizon from his vantage point on the tip of Finger Nail Ridge. His brow furrowed, he sighed at yet another day of inevitably fruitless scavenging. Yet another day of boiled water and dry grass. Of isolation and hopelessness. The Dirt slowly descended the outcropping of rough skin to his shallow cave under the thin, jutting portion of the Ridge and meditated for the four thousandth time on how exactly it was that this had come to be his existence. Because it wasn't a life. A life has purpose and fulfillment and some sort of hope for the next day and the next. This was just being for the sake of satisfying some cosmic need to fill a void. The Dirt had no family, no friends, no memory of anything. Anything but occupying the den under Finger Nail Ridge and looking out forlornly over the miles of flesh the spanned out to the south. He'd dared to venture out over those miles once. He had braved the treacherous peaks and valleys of the Knuckle Range, traversed the sparse and bizarre grasslands of the Fewandfarbetweenhair Fields, and stopped only when he'd come to the intimidating expanse of the Backhand Woods. Had he known, the arduous journey through those woods would have brought him to the unfathomable breadth of the Forearm Wilderness and to even further regions and territories of untold enormity. But The Dirt was just The Dirt and so he'd returned to his home under the Ridge and carried out his meaningless existence. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The narration would then follow The Dirt's activities for a few more days. A series of strange and unfamiliar experiences would encourage him to once more strike out to discover some sort of answer to his questions. He would happen upon the Thenar Space and marvel at the landscapes found in the Digitus Medius Region, almost identical to those he had just crossed. And then... ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Day 991 It was uncanny. The Dirt was almost annoyed at how similar this place was to the Plains. As though just over the next embankment, he would see the familiar smooth slope of Finger Nail Ridge and the rocky incline down to his den. The thought percolated and festered in his mind and a dull rage rose up in his stomach as the expectation began to feel more and more real. Nearing the crest of the last hill, he closed his eyes in preparation for the sting of disappointment and glaring sense of futility. He felt his feet stop moving as he stood at the top of that hill with the cool air blowing against his closed eyelids. The silence was penetrating while he let his reluctant anticipation build. But then he heard a voice. The Dirt's eyes snapped open and his mouth dropped at the scene spread out before him. It was Finger Nail Ridge but it was speckled with dirt. There were maybe six or seven of them and they looked exactly like him. He took a step forward and the voice called out again, "Mom! Do you see him? Who is that?" They were a family. A family of dirt. He began to run now as one of them began to usher the others down under the Ridge to what must be their own den. Tears in his eyes, The Dirt was sprinting now. He'd never imagined that there might be others like him. That there was dirt out there with stories and interests and lives worth living. The tears turned bitter for a moment as he realized everything he'd been missing out on, but then flowed stronger and more sweetly as he filled with hope for the future. The children had all filed down into their home now, but the mother and father stood guarding the bank, eyeing The Dirt suspiciously as he neared them. He skidded to a stop maybe thirty feet away from the couple, breathing heavily and anxiously wiping his tears away. "Hi," he breathed. The female dirt offered a cautious "Hello..." The male wrapped his arm around his wife and stepped forward defensively as The Dirt straightened and moved to approach them. "Now you just stay right there for a moment, Stranger." "Please," begged The Dirt, "I just want to say hello. I've been alone for as long as I can remember. I've just wandered here and never could have imagined I'd meet anyone who looked just like me. What is this place?" The couple glanced at each other and back to The Dirt. "This is Finger Nail Ridge, the northernmost point of the Digitus Medius Region. Where do you come fr-" And just then, the air erupted with the thunderous clangor of earth hitting earth as the Finger Nail Ridge that the Dirt had occupied for so long descended from the sky and scraped violently along the length of this miraculous new Finger Nail Ridge. The Dirt stumbled back in paralyzed horror at the nightmare playing out in front of him. As his upside home completed its crisscross of the dirt family's, it began to lift away from whence it came. The bloody, mangled carcasses of the family clung to the ascending Ridge and The Dirt watched the promise of a new life disappear into the sky. In a matter of minutes, purpose had been handed to him and yanked away again. And so filled with anguish and unspeakable hopelessness, The Dirt crawled down into the cavern that had once housed the answers to all his dreams but would now stand to serve as a reminder of the atrocity he had just witnessed and would forever question. He was nothing more than dirt under the nails. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well...it's not quite as eloquent as I was hoping it would be. But it's the story I imagined from the beginning so it works for me. Sorry if it was a bit of a bummer. It does have "woeful" in the title. Once again living up to my name, -Sad Blogger
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Sad Blogger
, at Monday, August 27, 2012, in
Imagine scientists discover that there are latent characteristics ingrained in human DNA that based on sonic microsignatures embedded in common first names, would be triggered slowly over time until they manifested as personality traits towards the end of puberty. So like the DNA would react to the repeated usage of a specific name for a person and cause specific character quirks. Given that reality, would certain names be outlawed due to the violent or psychotic tendencies they would cause in people? Movie idea: a woman struggles to protect an Icelandic boy named Todd (a name identified as infecting recipients with kleptomania) who has somehow out-evolved his namesake. Hunted by the Nafn Logreglu, they attempt to flee the country and escape to Canada, where everybody knows that a name is just a name. Goosebumps should be actual geese that sprout from your pores. They would provide a little bit of comic relief in tense moments, but would be a massive inconvenience when you were actually trying to get into those awe-inspiring moments. Then the goose roundup brigade would have to sweep through and everyone would be slightly miffed. I want to fill my shower with dirt and a couple small patio tiles and plant a smattering of different grasses and weeds in there so that every time I take a shower, I feel like I'm in a fantastical jungle. I'll use environmentally friendly shampoo to protect my shower weeds and use only cold water so it's actually like being a mountain man. And maybe I'll bury some worms and beetles in the dirt so they can skitter and squirm over my feet while I sing booming renditions of Irish drinking songs and old timey gravedigger hymns. I imagine it's something everybody is going to be doing, but I want to have a the-night-before-the-end-of-the-world party on December 20. There will be giving of small gifts just in case we miss Christmas and we'll wear dumb paper hats and sing Auld Lang Syne just in case we miss New Years Eve. And everyone will be very happy and very sad at the same time because they'll be together and imagining what it would be like to never see each other again. And they will be rowdy because it's a party and they will be quiet because they are reflecting. And there will be confessions and revelations and new love and heartbreak...tears and smiles and songs and hugging endlessly. And the next morning, everyone will wake up and say that they knew nothing was going to happen the whole time but their friendships will be amazing because they were together and honest and real for the first time in their lives. Because it takes the end of the world for us to realize what people are worth. My roommates got a new barbecue that they want to break in this Friday and I have nobody to invite to be the friends that I invited to the BBQ. I need to get me some friends. How does one acquire friends? This shit was so easy in elementary school. I got yelled at for forty consecutive minutes last week because I've been understocking the stationary in my building and now we're going to be way over budget this month because we have to order a bunch of stuff so we can overstock all the floors to make up for the lower stocks of stationary last month. When I asked if it was money that was going to be spent anyway, I was told that it's better to spread the spending out over time so that we don't run through all the money at once and make it look like we're over spending. Motherfucker...that's what I was doing! By keeping just enough on the shelves, the client has what they need and I can tend to it as needed, and we order smaller amounts of stationary over time. But here I am being told that I'm providing poor customer service and putting everybody else's jobs at risk. I was literally told that if I didn't keep the shelves overstocked, the entire company would rate poorly on end of the year surveys and everybody would lose their jobs. That falls on me? Fuck your mother if you can find her. Got a little bitter there at the end...sorry, Sad Blogger
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Sad Blogger
, 25.8.12 at Saturday, August 25, 2012, in
I had a dream this morning--I woke up shortly before noon simply from the fear of having to spend another day slinking around my house wishing I had enough money for food--that I was driving around with two of my favorite radio DJs in a place that looked extremely similar to Edmonton except that everyone was Jamaican. So presumably Jamaica looks a lot like Edmonton. By the way, I paused here for a moment because I remembered I had some smoked turkey and Havarti cheese. So I made a sandwich and I'm good. Don't worry about me. Anyways, we were speeding down hills and past schools and yelling in bad Jamaican accents and laughing our asses off and it was a great time and all that but for the life of me I can't remember why. Like why were the DJs there and why were we driving around in a ridiculous old VW cabriolet? The last thing I remember from earlier in the dream was standing in the foyer of some old house that I think my brother and I had just moved into with my dad. My brother had taken off for some reason and my dad and I were arguing about what the reason was. Then I got a call from my mom saying he was just driving around and thinking and suddenly I was also driving around but it had nothing to do with my brother. The subconscious is weak, man. You give it a small problem, and it just fast-forwards to some goofy far off place where everything is green fields and Jamaican accents. But I remember a lot of details about the house. The house that was apparently my dream house. Because it was in a dream and it was a house. C'mon, people. But I mean there was nothing particularly pretty about it. A lot of the walls were pink and it had gray carpet throughout and where there weren't pink walls, there were cracked and worn wood panels. I don't remember walking into the house for the first time in the dream. We were just kind of all of a sudden settling into the respective rooms that we'd decided were ours. There were already a few select pieces of furniture in the house as well, but I couldn't tell you if it was ours or just already there. Oh! Oh! Oh! Before getting to the house, I remember we were driving in circles around this massive, empty parking lot outside of what I'll assume was a shopping center. We were trying to get to a bridge that was connected to the parking lot. I can't remember who was in the car. I want to say it was my dad because that's who we were with later but the person kept telling me where to go and how to drive so it's more likely it was my mom. Anyhow, we finally got onto the bridge and we were crossing this massive, hardly-moving river to some hilly, grassy island. MAYBE THAT WAS THE JAMAICA PLACE! I dunno. But the bridge turned into this tunnel kind of thing and suddenly, because it was a dream, we were walking instead of driving. It wasn't necessarily spooky...it still felt like the beginning of an 80's adventure flick...but the tunnel had kind of a mid-century military kind of feel. Or maybe older. Kind of steampunk meets art deco. I feel like the walking part didn't last very long though. It's more like we were driving across the bridge, then suddenly we were just standing in this sort of antechamber. There were these two old people there now as well and we were all waiting for this hatch thing to open. Like you see on submarines or whatever. It gets foggier here. I'm sorry. Then I think the hatch opened. Or the dream fast-forwarded again or something and we were gathered in this old shack thing. It looked like the bar from Fawlty Towers except it was like a hundred years old and faded and dingy. And it wasn't a bar. It was like one of those places you see in Discovery series about people who collect weird stuff. An oddity museum, I guess. But we had cream sodas and were lounging around like we were waiting for someone to show up. I don't remember anything after that. Maybe I woke up for a bit and answered a text or something. Anyhow, after returning to sleep and taking a trip back to Dreamland, my brother and Dad and I were standing in our new abode and just sort of looking at each other like well, here we are. I think some time passed, though, between that point and the next part of the dream that I remember. You know? Like it seems weird that some scenes would be connected to other scenes so you have to assume something else happened in between. Either way, they were talking in some room or another about whatever dumb thing (maybe they weren't even saying words...maybe my mind was just making Peanuts-like, muted-trumpet noises to make me think they were talking...WHO KNOWS) and I decided to take a tour of the house. You know, check out my dad's room and all that. And this is why I've decided that dreams are whack. For whatever reason, my subconscious decided that the house had a main entryway thing and then immediately opened into a bedroom on the right. Nothing to the left. Just come in the door, stairs straight ahead, bedroom to the right. That bedroom opened into a dining room and then a kitchen towards the back of the house and had another set of stairs going up from the right wall. Here, I'll make a picture:
That was my impression of the main floor. So coming up the stairs, I'm expecting a similar layout. Sans kitchen and dining room, of course. But it ended up being something more akin to this:
So my question, then, is where the hell do those middle stairs on the main floor go and where do the far left stairs on the second floor go? I mean in the dream, I believe I remember coming down the stairs and ending up in the bedroom on the main floor. But there are no stairs there. So some sort of mind trickery went on in this dumb dream and I want to know why! Actually, I don't really care. I just liked the bizarre layout of the house and the way the entertainment room was considerably separate from the rest of the house. I think living room/watching TV areas tend to be really central and accessible. I like the idea of it being kind of hidden away and private.
Well that really ended with a bang...
Telling other people about your own dreams really is the worst. It always ends with you trying to figure out what the next part or why you thought it was so cool while your friends or family kind of look at each other like does something seem fundamentally wrong with him? Well I tried. I promise not do it again. But I had a lot of fun making the house diagrams, as lame as they are. Whatever. You try it, assholes.
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Sad Blogger
, 22.8.12 at Wednesday, August 22, 2012, in
For the sake of easier subject-verb agreement in writing this, I'm just going to be referring to bluegrass, Americana, and old timey music as bluegrass. But as I have mentioned down in the description of Deer Tick's "Easy", I'll also be including rockabilly. So maybe we'll just call everything in this post. "American music that leans toward the folkier side of country but can also be a little louder and groovy". Anyways, BLUEGRASS was another one of those genres that really got me back into exploring music. I dunno if I've relayed the specific circumstances of how it came about with alt-pop and folk and all that jazz (except not jazz jazz because that was a different process), but that story coincides with my conversion to bluegrass fanaticism as well. A friend of mine had mentioned a couple of songs that she couldn't get out of her head and me being deeply (without ever having mentioned it, of course) in love with her, I enthusiastically logged into Last.fm and put together some mix CDs with songs that sounded like the two she liked. One being more folk-popish and the other being very bluegrassy. And since then, I've fiendishly scoured Last.fm, imeem when it existed, IndieFeed, 8tracks, the Hype Machine, and the Sixty One for whatever newest undiscovered (or discovered, whatever) artists I could get my ear-hands on. So I guess what would be about six years later now, I'd like to present you with some of my favorite bluegrass tracks. 1. The Low Anthem - The Horizon is a Beltway
And of course the first three songs I pick would end up not even being bluegrass. I know I said it was going to be an umbrella term, but just considering referring to this masterpiece of Americana as bluegrass is making me uncomfortable. Maybe I should just call it the ol' timey playlist. Whatever. I started listening to the Low Anthem for their softer, poetic folk ballads, but this song and Home I'll Never Be (an Americana-ized rendition of a Tom Waits adaptation of a Jack Kerouac poem) have turned out to be the songs that I associate with this band. I mean you can hear their obvious virtuosity with the variety of instruments they employ in this song and it translates into the even wider range of instruments they use in their slower songs and I think it's for that reason that they're known for said slower songs. But I think they deserve more credit for the power and originality of these gorgeous specimens of old timey caterwaulin'. 2. The Avett Brothers - And It Spread
I think the Avett Brothers are more widely considered a folk band. And yeah, all their more popular songs are a bit slower and more reflective...but I mean look at those outfits. And there's a fiddle in the studio recording. So we're calling it old timey. Like I and Love and You is a great song...and the Ballad of Love and Hate...and Kickdrum Heart...and all the Pretty Girl songs...they're brilliant, beautiful songs. But I've always been drawn to the reckless abandon of Seth's yelling in the chorus and the imagery of her love being this narcotic that spreads through his body: You took my hand and held it up And shot my arm full of love and it spread and it spread into the world It's just a goddamn lovely song, yo. 3. Old Crow Medicine Show - Wagon Wheel
I was going to say that this was the song that started it all for me. But the more I've thought about it, the song that really started it all off was Man of Constant Sorrow as performed in O Brother, Where Art Thou. Actually, it was probably The Road to Nash Vegas by Dan Tyminski. ANYHOW, this is the song I referred to in the intro that my friend couldn't get out of her head. I do believe it's a Bob Dylan song, but I can't be bothered to confirm that. But she mentioned it and I eagerly hopped at the opportunity to put together aMIX TAPE!!! (although it was technically a mix CD) full of similar songs. But in spite of the charming compilation of tunes I put together, this has continued to be my favorite of the bunch. I've referenced it in a couple of posts I've made on here. Actually, I referenced it in the travelogue I composed during my tour of the States last year...and I haven't posted those on here...so never mind. But it's a gorgeous song full of gorgeous harmonies and you should listen to it. In a previous post, I know I described "Million Dollar Bill" by Dawes as being the perfect rolling-down-a-highway-at-night-and-staring-at-the-moon-and-missing-a-gal song, and I think this makes for the perfect rolling-down-a-highway-during-the-day-and-staring-at-the-surrounding-hills-and-missing-a-gal song. 4. Devil Makes Three - Old Number 7
The video that I wanted to post for Devil Makes Three is no longer on YouTube so you can settle for Old Number 7. I mean it's still a good song, but what I really wanted to get across was how just barebones and cool their shows look. There are few things as thrilling to me as watching someone just doing their thing to an upright bass. And it doesn't hurt that in this case it's a chick. 5. The Cramps - The Way I Walk
I adore this song. That's all that matters. People don't make music like this anymore and they should. They almost overkill delay effect on the guitars and the screams in the background and the ridiculous cool guy, monster vocals. The Cramps deserved to be stupid famous. But whatever.
6. The Be Good Tanyas - The Littlest Birds
I do believe the first time I ever heard this song was in an episode of Gilmore Girls, but it didn't really appeal or even occur to me that it was an excellent song. A couple years later, this was one of the songs that got put into that hopeful/hopeless mix CD and it really is just perfect. It's simple and pretty and ladies sing it so it's a refreshing reprieve from the slough of male voices represented in this list. If you want to be like me, you can bounce along to it in your chair. 7. Deer Tick - Easy
K so Deer Tick doesn't really fit into my previously stated Actually you know what? I'm going to go back and change the intro now. As well as my fifth selection in the list. Because the one I have there now is kind of lame and I really want to use this song. So I'm adding another genre to the umbrella: rockabilly. Cuz that's the closest thing I can think of to describing Deer Tick. I had planned to link Smith Hill which is more of an Americana ballad, but this song just so perfectly embodies who they are and what their sound is. The raw vocals and hectic layers of fuzzy, twangy guitars. 8. Trampled by Turtles - Wait So Long
There is a comment on this video that says something along the lines of "it would be so awesome if Trampled By Turtles waited several years before they released any other songs or records and then just broke up without having released anything else and this was the only song we ever got to hear by them because it's that good." Now, I disagree. Just because they're awesome and need to make music because I and other people need to hear it. But it is that good of a song. I can and do listen to it at least twice a day. And you should too. This entire paragraph stinks. But please listen to this song. Try to wrap your head around the banjo and the fiddle. THE FIDDLE!!!! Look at that dude attack that thing!!! And the lyrics too. Yeah, Dave Simonett's vocals have that sort of grating, lamenting wail, but they're perfectly suited to the lyrics of this song. I mean it's not a profound song. It's about a dude who's been friendzoned. But that's poignant...right? Whatever. LISTEN TO THE SONG! 9. Frontier Rucks - Dark Autumn Hour
This is a perfect song. It is my favorite song to play on the guitar and it has a melodica and a musical saw solo and a pretty girl singing faint harmonies. And it's in the woods and it's recorded on a single camera mic and sounds amazing. AND THE LYRICS!!! Ugh, the lyrics. I mean not even just the words themselves, but the rhyme scheme and the cadence and everything about all of it. It's beautiful and heartbreaking and poignant and a story I want to live because it's sadly romantic and romantically sad. I have nothing to say about this song, really. Just gurgling noises of envy and affection. 10. Carolina Chocolate Drops - Your Baby Ain't Sweet Like Mine
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Sad Blogger
, 17.8.12 at Friday, August 17, 2012, in
A lot of the non-journaly stuff that I post here I copy over after having posted on an Irish writing forum that I've been a member of for about a year. Maybe two. It feels like forever. Anyhow, one of the members on that site brought up a contest that Esquire magazine is having for flash fiction. Flash fiction being an extremely short story told with a limited number of words. In this case, they're asking for exactly seventy-nine words with a plot and characterization. So below you can see my first attempt. I'll admit that the idea for the character and his story were transplanted from an idea I've been trying to turn into a short story for a long time but just never really knew how to fully develop.
The pencil dropped from Walt’s hand and rolled to the bottom of the drafting table. His straining gaze lifted to the framed photo of Eleanor. She had supported his dream right up to the end. A mini-golf course meant to tell the story of his tour in Korea. It seemed so much more accomplishable fifteen years ago. And now tears fought to escape his tired eyes as his head bent to the desk and his dream died with him.
I will say that I have almost zero faith in this. I said so on the writing forum and one person was kind enough to express at least a bit of appreciation for it so I guess that's something. But it just feels so generic and stock to me. I mean an old man fighting back tears as he dies with regrets? So bad. But it gave me an idea of what can be done with the word limit so I can at least take that and use it to come up with something a little more fresh and creative. Until then, this is what I offer up. So enjoy it or not. Whatever. Unimaginatively yours, Sad Blogger
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Sad Blogger
, 9.8.12 at Thursday, August 09, 2012, in
The declamatory dandy, Damien Dartmouth, darts down hill dune and dale, delightedly demanding each drifter and derelict to put up their dukes for a duel to the death. Day-by-day, his dares are declined and his delectation dilatorily deflates. Diminished and depressed, the downtrodden disputant dolefully dawdles down a darkened drag in the dusky dimness of a distinctly demoralizing day. Distracted by his own despondency, the dandy Damien Dartmouth does not discern a disquieting dude descending from the darkness. The deleterious devil delivered a deafening declaration of dissension, disrupting Damien's disheartened daydreaming. Discarding his desolation without deliberation, the dexterous defendant dives diligently into this new diversion. Demonstrating the durability of a demigod, the dandy Damien Dartmouth dances with his daunting dissentient, draining and depleting the demon's drive. Detecting the denouement of the dispute, Damien delivers a debilitating blow, defeating the disquieting dude. Dun-dun-dunnnnn.
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Sad Blogger
, at Thursday, August 09, 2012, in
This was originally going to be an entry dedicated entirely to electro-swing. But then I realized that I really do only know a small handful of artists and even then only a scant selection of their songs. So I decided to expand my criteria to anything that could be remotely related to "nu-jazz" and modern swing in general. I should note that out of desperation to include songs that I think will appeal to a wider audience, I'm aware of how not-obscure some of these will be. I know that doesn't really matter, but my aim from the beginning was to bring some awareness to some lesser-know artists and bands. I'm babbling. Ho hum.
1. Parov Stelar - Booty Swing
I couldn't decide if I should start strong and taper off weakly, start weak and build to a bang, or just toss songs in willynilly and hope they're engaging enough to keep everyone's interest. I ended up going with the song that got me into this whole nichey sub-genre. I think a classmate from a poetry course sent me a link to this video and after a few clicks through related vids, I landed on one of him dancing to Booty Swing. And I was permanently sold. I wouldn't necessarily say that this song is any kind of meaningful to me--there are other Parov Stelar tracks that are a lot prettier and captivating--but I've always felt it sort of embodied the sound of what this music is/should be.
2. The Atomic Fireballs - Swing Sweet Pussycat
I know that the first time I heard these guys was on So You Think You Can Dance, and even that was about a decade after this album was released, so I'm not sure how much attention these guys have received in terms of mainstream superstardom. I'll just assume you know who they are. I did you the kindness, though, of linking a song that isn't Man With the Hex. I'd say this is my favorite track on Torch This Place just for how "swingin'" it is. Plus it's fun sexy wordplay. So yeah, yay music.
3. Squirrel Nut Zippers - Stop, Drop and Roll
Another group that I'm pretty sure has attained a respectable level of recognition and fame. Videos for Hell and The Ghost of Stephen Foster have a couple million views on YouTube so somebody out there is listening to them. But I love, luff, lurve Bedlam Ballroom. Back in junior high, when my only source of music was ripping borrowed CDs from the library, it was one of those albums I'd literally tossed into a pile of others with weird names or cool cover art during one of my weekly trips. I immediately liked a lot of the slower stuff on the disc just because it was different from what I was used to listening to and what I knew any of my friends were into. But I was always drawn to this track with its bombastic dance hall piano and sax solo.
4. Waldeck - Addicted
I'm not 100% positive, but I'm mostly certain that the vocalist on this track is Joy Malcolm of Incognito. I start by giving her credit because she really makes this song. It's a decent song, and actually not really one of Waldeck's swingingest tracks, but her voice absolutely makes it a must-hear while dabbling in the sub-genre and its related sub-subs. It calls to mind mysterious ladies in dark dresses and silent gentlemen with nice hats making eyes at each other across smokey speakeasies. Nom.
5. Belleruche - Alice
I really wanted to get a decent quality video of a live performance for this song but just could not find any. I would wholeheartedly recommend watching Kathrine deBoer sing live once or twice or, you know, three or four. Cuz she's amazing. And ya I realize at this point it's more soul than anything else, but wasn't my introduction a clear enough warning of how ambiguous the swing guidelines would be? I wanted this to be the song I featured because I think it demonstrates how the concept behind nu-jazz et al can crossover into other classic genres. So ya, let the fuzzy pipe cleaner-like bristles of her voice stroke your arms and caress your neck.
6. Caravan Palace - Rock it for Me
I'M SUPER 'CITED ABOUT THIS ONE!!!! Actually, I don't think I'd even heard this song prior to putting this list together. Ummmmmmm. Yup, it's not on their self-titled album so I didn't know about it. I was probably going to link Suzy or Bambous. Actually ya, please check out the latter. It`s just too funky and different from most things. But ya, I was looking through their videos for something that wasn't either of those (just in case) and stumbled upon this gem. I was bouncing in my chair and grinning all over the place watching them jitterbuggin' and jivin' or whatever. It's just too fun and enviable. I WANNA DO THAT! I'm done. Just listen to the song, goddammit.
7. Big Bad Voodoo Daddy - How Big Can You Get?
Yes, yes, yes. It's technically a Cab Calloway song. But How Big Can You Get was the first BBVD album I ever listened to and I figure this song isn't as popular as say, Minnie the Moocher et cetera. So you're gonna listen to it. You're gonna listen to it, you're gonna ignore the lame slideshow, and you're gonna like it. That's all.
8. Tape Five - Bad Boy Good Man
Alright! Back to some legitimate electro-swing. If you haven't noticed, my captions have been getting shorter and padded-er. It's getting dark and I'm getting lazy and to be honest, the next two tracks are only kind of okay. I just have a compulsion to stay committed to the ten-tracks-per-post thing. So listen to the rest if you want. Whatever.
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Sad Blogger
, 8.8.12 at Wednesday, August 08, 2012, in
Last weekend I moved out on my own for the first time ever. I say on my own...I have two housemates...but I mean in the sense that I'm now dependent only on myself. As much freedom as I did admittedly have (and why shouldn't I? I'm 21, dammit), there's still the obligation of making sure other members of the household know that you're leaving and when to expect you back et cetera because that's what you do. And there was still the obligation to drive non-driving members of the family to the places they needed to be and put aside time for whatever petty little shit they needed to drag you into. You know? So now there's none of that. I mean the housemates are my friends so if it's a big deal I'll fill them in on "the haps," but for the most part there are no tethers of any kind. I think, though, that it hasn't been long enough for me to feel like anything has changed. I mean I jump on the train north instead of the bus south now. And I wake up an hour later. And I kind of just bum around not having to worry about being in anybody's way after work. But so what? I dunno why I even typed those last few sentences now. I guess just to emphasize my point that I don't feel like much is that different. Maybe my family and I have just been that disassociated with each other for long enough that the transition away from them wasn't as momentous as people make it out to be? Maybe people have never really made it out to be anything and I'm just a sentimental doofus who expected more all my life. Whatever. So ya, now I take the C-Train to work in the morning, just another mope among the horde of mopes ceaselessly battling for a spot near the door so we can all get out when we get to our stops. Worse, though, is the arduous ride back home. I mean it's only four or five stops, but it's to the point that you can't call it a ride. Rides are supposed to be thrilling. Whimsical. Fun. This shit is like a trial, conviction, and sentence all in one. But I refuse to become just another one of the frowning, thousand-yard-stare drones packed onto the train. Like look at this red haired chick here in front of me. I'm impressing the crap out of her with my not-holding-on balancing skills. She's all fluttering her eyes and fanning herself. I'm spectacular. But really, she's just a sad looking Puerto Rican woman mushed up against the sea of unpleasant, tired people. I want to take her picture and send it to my friends so we can all laugh at the miserable grown-ups, but I'm afraid my shiny phone will catch her eye and wake the bloodlust she's been trying to control for the past five centuries. The last thing my poor mother needs to read in the newspaper is that her son incited a public transportation-based vampiric massacre during rush hour. So instead I just smile at another old lady who looks like she has cute stories about recycling bottles in 1943 with her husband. She doesn't smile back. Probably thinks I'm patronizing her 'cuz she's old. I hate old ladies and their attitudes. Anyways, that was all I really had to share about that. Maybe if something particularly nifty and new happens with regards to my living situation, I'll post about that. But I just wanted to blab about riding the train. I'm real fucking exciting. Sad Blogger out. PS- I am still writing things. I have about 13 drafts going that I intend to publish eventually. I haven't been slacking, I swear. Just busy. Why am I justifying myself to you people? Why am I clinging to the delusion that there even is a "you people"? Sigh.
On behalf of the Happy Blogger and the Sad Blogger, welcome to The In Between... an irregularly scheduled weekly look into our imaginations with the occasional glimpse into our private lives. Each week we will attempt to bring you a little piece of creative thinking, to either brighten your day or cloud it with some heavy thoughts. Either way, we encourage you to check back every so often to read and respond what's on our minds.
We hope you enjoy what we have to say and welcome to The In Between. Regards,
The Bloggers.
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