Fuck Titles. Here's Songs. Posted by Sad Blogger , 2.8.12 at Thursday, August 02, 2012, in

I was about to start by musing that I couldn't be the only one to feel a certain way about something, but I despise when other people try to introduce their own ideas as though they're completely unique or profound or whatever. So instead we'll begin like this: I know that people listen to different kinds of music for different reasons. I know that some of the most beautiful songs out there have dogshit lyrics (or none at all) and that some of the most insightful or moving lyrics ever written are underscored by music that sounds like a balsa wood airplane being flushed down the toilet. So the songs below aren't really connected by any clever theme or sound, but simply just a collection of songs that either mean a lot to me because of the words, or move me deeply because of the music. Enjoy.

1. Perfume Genius - Dark Parts

This one happens to have a frustratingly superfluous combination of gorgeous music and haunting lyrics. I think that the driving piano and echoing, lifting ohh-oh-ohhs, typically what I'd associate with a sense of exultation and glorification, are an almost disquieting pairing with the pain and sorrow sewn into the first verse. Before the love and protection and safety of the following verses breaks through, it's the saddest thing in the world, calling to mind images of vast, empty cathedrals and violated spirits ascending to infinity. But as I said, the Protector steps in and takes the pain and the corruption and the filth away and the music drops and the lyrics with them and it's just the sound of knowing you're safe. This song rules.

2. Meursault - Another

This one tends to be one of those songs that I just listen to because it's calming and Neil Pennycook's voice is just so ethereal and mesmerizing to me. So I throw this one into the "pretty music", column but giving it a listen and paying some actual attention to the lyrics, this song really does mean a lot more to me than I realized it did. I can relate so painfully to telling myself that "this is the thing" and then tiring of it after a few months. And whether it's days or relationships or passions or ice cream cones. There's always another.

3. Heartless Bastards - Into the Open

This is kind of an odd one out. There's nothing particularaly special to me about the composition of either the music or the lyrics, I just really love the bluesy guitar tone and the immense power of Erika Wennerstrom's voice.

4. Mono & World's End Girlfriend - Part 5



It goes without saying that the lyrics in this one are nothing to write home about (hehe). But it doesn't need them. In the same post-rock pantheon as Codes in the Clouds, the Album Leaf, Explosions in the Sky, Mogwai, Stars of the Lid, etc. Put on some rain sound effects, close your eyes, and just drift along the soundscape this stuff paints for you.

5. Fat City Reprise - Long Gone

This used to be one of those songs in the line of Stars by The Love Language that I mentioned in the last entry. Every time I sat down at my computer or stepped out with the ol' iPod, this song had to be played at least once. How often do you hear those vintage carousel-esque pipe organs in a rock song? The lyrics were never particularly meaningful to me, but with that raspy grate in Frank Pedano's vocals, "thought she was right...she was soooooo wrong" does feel like it's digging into you somewhere personal. Or at least it does for me. Then the piano interlude...so damn good.

6. The Everybodyfields - Aeroplane



This was not the song that I originally intended to link by the everybodyfields. I really, reeeeally wanted to post a link to I Can't Sleep but there are only a couple lower quality live versions on YouTube. Not only are the slide guitars in that song the most mournful you've ever heard, the one line in the chorus:

And I can't sleep 'cause I don't dream of you anymore

is one of the most poignant, tear-jerking, on-the-nose lyrics I've ever heard in a heartbreak song. This song, however, is just as excellent if only for the gentle explosiveness of the loose-strung guitar and the fiddle right at the beginning. The words aren't particularly meaningful to me, but i do love the lines in the (I think) third verse:

You do what you want to do

I will be right here waiting

I dunno. I'm just always drawn to the idea of unconditional patience.

7. The Antlers - Kettering

The entire Hospice album is--to borrow a phrase--a staggering work of heartbreaking genius. It's a concept album that tells the story of the relationship and romance of a hospice worker at Sloan-Kettering and a patient who has terminal bone cancer. This song specifically is about his first encounter with her and his realization of how impossible it will be to care for/watch the death of this woman he just fell in love with. Obviously I can't necessarily relate to every aspect of this song, but I've been a part of those ongoing bedside vigils and I've watched grandparents die in their sleep and I've been in love. So some of the pieces do come together. Even if you can't relate, though, the words are just so moving in their agonizing simplicity. I would quote every last one if I could, but to pick my favorites I would have to say:

'Cause you'd been abused by the bone that refused you

because it sums up so many complicated concepts and realities in a beautiful-yet-chilling visual. And if I had to chose just one more it would be:

 And I didn't believe them

When they told me that there was no saving you

just because goddamn. And if the context or the lyrics don't do anything for you, this song has stood out for me above thousands of others just for the mournful fragility of Peter Silberman's voice. Over top of the soft, haunting pulsing of the piano? Shivers and shudders. 

8. Songs: Ohia - The Black Crow

I added this one simply for

And it's fading

And it's fading

And it's fading

You really don't need more than that.

9. The Acorn - Lullaby (Mountain)



I mean, c'mon. Just listen to the intro. You can almost see a POV shot moving through foliage up the side of a mountain. It sounds like curious animals flitting across a path. The sun peeking around untouched leaves. Green overgrowth and not knowing what's around the next corner. It kind of reminds me of Little Bird by Lisa Hannigan but that's not important. I haven't really paid any attention to the words, but I do know that Casey Mecija's voice (of Ohbijou fame) is like a tickle in your ear. She really does have the perfect lullaby voice.

10. State Radio - Indian Moon

 

Lastly, Indian Moon is one of those songs that reintroduced me to music. For the year or so before I happened across it, I was mostly listening to various niche genres of metal, completely ignoring anything else that was out there. I can't remember the specific circumstances of how it occurred, but I believe I was trying to find songs that were similar to Joshua Radin's 'The Fear You Won't Fall' for a friend. I came across Camilo by State Radio and really dug their sound (euch) so enthusiastically dove into their discography. They don't have a single song I dislike, but one of the first few that I listened through during that initial discovery period was this one. And oh em gee did it trigger a landslide in me. The delicate, bell-like tintannabulation of the guitar, how the harmonica sounds like it's staring off sadly into the distance, the power of Chad's tenderly abraisive voice, the strum pattern changes with each verse transition,

You're my chorus my refrain
The verse of my first pain
Let the voices come barrelling back

This song inspired me to immerse myself in beautiful music and has continued to for the past four years. So I would actually like to thank this song and its creators. For whatever that's worth.

Making "Catching Fire" a Better Movie Posted by Sad Blogger , 1.8.12 at Wednesday, August 01, 2012, in

I had lunch with a friend of mine yesterday and she had briefly mentioned that she'd read through the Hunger Games trilogy and how disappointed she was with where it went. I've only seen the movie once, and I think that it was due to the fact I hadn't read any of the books that I actually thought it was an okay flick. Actually, I think it was only because I disliked Jennifer Lawrence's character and didn't buy the connection between her and the Bridge to Terabithia kid that I couldn't get more enthusiastic about the whole thing. But that has less to do with the film making and mostly falls on the construction of the story. So pretty much it would be a wicked movie if the main characters weren't in it. ANYHOW. My friend was saying that the first book was great, but the other two were just kind of perpetuating a plot that had already played itself out. Something about Katniss and Peeta (PeeNiss from now on. I didn't come up with that, but it's awesome so bite me) having to return to the Games because they cheated or something the first time. Which is totally something you pick up on at the end of the movie with Donald Sutherland's Beard being all mad and growling. But I guess as much as it's obvious by merit of the fact there's a third book that the two survive to the end of the second book, it still comes as a massive bummer.

So what I'd like to propose is that instead of letting them live through the second book, Donald Sutherland's Beard (DSB) completely loses composure and as a dull, guttural roar emits from deep inside him, two massive, scabby batwings explode through his goofy wizard robes. As his human flesh ruptures to reveal the scaly, bark-like dermis of his true form and he triples in size, long, hard, obsidian spikes begin to extend from his hairline, up and back down to the base of his neck. His staff frozen in place by their paralyzing fear and the onlooking crowd attempting to flea in a frenzy, the bearded behemoth's jaws unhinge and a bone-chilling squeal erupts from the garrish maw. Lunging forward with nightmarish speed, DSB leaps up and above the crowd and takes wing, effortlessly speeding in the direction of the Hunger Games arena. Within seconds he's there and shattering through the sky barrier (cuz Donald Sutherland's Beard is magic, duh). Ruby-red eyes bulging with the intensity of his bloodlust, DSB soars over the leafy canopy of the expansive war zone, drawn to the warmth and innocence of the resilient teens. Finally spotting them from high above, his hellion wings collapse into his back and DSB hurtles at the heroes in a kamikaze death-plunge. Wings back out at the last second, he pulls an Iron Man and lands physics-defying-ly in front of PeeNiss, beating his gnarled hooves against his knotted, intimidating chest and releasing another supersonic screech. PeeNiss cling to each other and sob their last sweet nothings into each other's necks. Donald Sutherland's Beard abruptly and aggressively pins the two down with a single cloven hoof and slowly draws his mangled demon face to within an inch of theirs, desperate and tear-stained. With a grunt and an impossibly powerful thrust of his hulking body, PeeNiss disappears down the monster's gullet. The camera slowly pans up and away in an emotional crane shot as a quiet, defeated piano score plays over DSB munching and snorting alone. A muted montage of the spectators and citizens rolls, the piano still playing. They are mortified and in awe of what they've just beheld. A mournful violin joins the piano briefly as the montage fades to a shot of Donald Sutherland's Beard back in his human form, squatting naked in the middle of the forest. The camera steadily approaches him as he licks at what is clearly a teenager's shin bone. He turns to the camera as it nears him and wipes his mouth with his forearm. The score fades completely as he peers bemusedly into the camera and says, "The odds may not have been in their favour, but those childrens was sure full of flavour!!!" and beams widely. As unnecessarily cheerful trumpet music fades in, the old naked man rises to his feet and does a merry jig. Cut to the spectators looking on in horror. Cut back to DSB and his jolly, flopping old man penis. Cut to black. Credits.

Something like that.

Leave a comment if you have any ideas for other movies that could use a makeover,
Sad Blogger

A Cornucopia of Cs Collected and a Chunk of a Chronicle Compiled Posted by Sad Blogger , 31.7.12 at Tuesday, July 31, 2012, in

Confined to to his cubicle, Claude couldn't concentrate on the considerable collection of correspondence on the cabinet. So cursing his calling, he confided his concerns to a community of cyberspace colleagues. Calmed by their contributions of consolation, Claude considered a change of course, a conversion of career. Concluding that he could contrive a cunning callous caper, he came away from his commercial cell and converged conspicuously with the corridor crowd. While he casually carried along through the current of cuisine-craving company characters, he commenced conceiving contraptions he could commit to his crafty cause. Not conscious of the circumstances in the couloir, the concentrating criminal-to-be collided with a captivating and curvaceous childcare worker. Clothed in a cashmere coat and camouflage capris, the chic chick was a curious contradiction. I can't conceive of a conclusion so in closing, take care.

An Alright Poem Revisited and (hopefully) improved Posted by Sad Blogger , 30.7.12 at Monday, July 30, 2012, in

"Our Weapons or What Have You"

always fading 
into water
into moonlight into blackness 
into dark voices and memories and dreams 
flushed and buried ghosts 
and wisps and hints and spectres pushing out against shores and walls 
endlessly burning like bridges
like candles


like for you being born and being alive being dying
being dead lovers in windows
in beds and cafes
expressing their passions and lust
their wantings
similizing their love like a sunset like a flower like a battlefield 
and like a flame
a million flowers for a million starry, starry 


nights endlessly bleeding on the floor
on the tablecloth on the sidewalk in our hearts
stones thrown and breaking bones
children and animals running freely and 
dancing with the wind
with angels
in the streets rivers and streams and creeks drinking 
from all things soft and rocking infinitely 


used
to describe to destroy to build
to immortalize words and paragraphs and
...                                    pauses 
exploited and embraced themes 
and tones and 
intimations pulsing together in riotous clumps and 
tirelessly bending like willow trees like tools 
like slaves.

A Bounty of Bs Bunched Up and a Bit of a Book Begat Posted by Sad Blogger , at Monday, July 30, 2012, in

Bedecked in Boucheron baubles and Bulgarian bedclothes beyond compare, the bewitching and bizarre Baron Brisko breezes through the boondocks, bestowing benign benefaction upon the bonnets and bowlers of each burgher and burgess. Bumping into a bitter and beleaguered bum, the Baron bows to beseech the beggar his biography. Busted in bed betwixt a beguiling baker and a bonny barmaid, his blushing bride banished his bullshitting bottom from their balmy abode. Bombarding the buffoon with blatant and biting blasphemies, and bouncing the buxom babes out with the brute, the belligerent bride embraced her brand new brio. So now bereft of belongings and bound to belly-ache and beg bystanders for benevolent beneficence, the bawdy and belittled brat bethinks and broods over his breached bethrothal.

Alabama Shakes Posted by Sad Blogger , 29.7.12 at Sunday, July 29, 2012, in

This is a post dedicated entirely to the video linked below. I have no words to go with it because...
really I just have no words. She is incredible and this song should be the ruler of a small nation.

That's all,
Sad Blogger

Love Sick Posted by Sad Blogger , 27.7.12 at Friday, July 27, 2012, in

A month and a bit ago, my friend the Happy Blogger convinced me--a year after writing angrily about the fact that it existed--to watch a movie called The Art of Getting By. I did so, begrudgingly, because she said she liked it a lot, but also because I was curious to see if it was as enraging as I predicted it to be. It was. But it was also engaging enough to sit through and actually had some downright endearing scenes. One of those scenes, the Happy Blogger and I agreed, contained the best lines in the movie:

"I'm allergic to hormones."

"What hormones?"

"My own."

And so we decided it would behoove us not to put together a story about a young man attempting to maintain a normal existence while struggling with the impossible frustration of an allergy to his own hormones. And so I'm proud to present my first draft of the prologue to that story. I'm not sure if I will be posting the rest of the story because of all the things I've ever written, I think this idea actually has a chance of having some sort of mainstream appeal and publish-ibility. So, you know, gotta keep the genius a secret.


If anything, I'll just update this post with any additions so that it's all in one place and not drifting loosely all over the blog. Like some other posts I know. If that's the case, I'll move it up to the top of the queue so it doesn't go unnoticed. But for God's sake, let me know if you like it. I'm dying here.

PS - I know that some of the medical stuff is inaccurate or just plain wrong. I'm making this shit up, people. We don't all have time for research or fact checking. Anyways, enjoy.

Prologue

In the first grade, I had a friend named Riley who was allergic to peanuts. When you’re a kid, nobody really explains to you what an allergy is beyond that touching or eating certain things makes you fall over dead. I don’t think they even tell you when you’re the one with the allergy because the allergic kids would tell you the exact same thing.

“I’m allergic to those.”

“What does that mean?”

"I dunno. They make my blood stop working and I die.”

And in most cases, I don't think the kids have ever really even had a reaction. It's sort of just a fearful notion their parents dump into their smushy, soft little heads without explanation. I know that for me, it was a beautiful lie I used to avoid the embarrassment of not being allowed to enjoy all the sugary, fatty, expensive delights the other kids’ parents were loving enough to let their children ingest. I have a distinct memory of a pizza day in the second grade on which I was offered a cup of orange soda from one of the supervising moms. I had only tried sodie-pop maybe twice in my life and was pretty certain I didn’t like the way the fizz made my mouth feel. So I told the mom that I was “allergic to pop” and moved onto my bland, familiar companion, the 8oz milkbox. In hindsight, I have to assume that her understanding nod was masked amusement. This developed into a plethora of convenient allergies to whatever new thing had any potential to be awful: pickles, Italian dressing, mayonnaise, bananas, liver, whatever.

I didn't know then and I wouldn't know for a good number of years yet that I had a real allergy incubating somewhere deep inside me that would go on to ruin my life worse than any sickness or sudden death ever could have.

My first crush presented itself more as a bouquet of crushes on almost every girl in my third grade class. I remember Brie, Kaylee, Katelyn, Josee, Talia, Dawn, and Aria. I remember feeling all impressive when I helped Michael Grady wheel a TV cart into our class and making eye contact with Brie like see how strong I am, Baby? I remember laying in my bed, licking all up the back of my hand so it was nice and wet so I could make out with it and pretend I was kissing and dancing romantically with Jocelyn and Dawn. I remember a teacher forcing me to help Katelyn clean up the pile of snow I had dumped in her coat during recess and wanting to hold her hand while I flicked the snow off her shirt. I was a soft, sappy child who in hindsight should have been beat up on a constant basis by all the boys while they yelled at me about cooties or prenups or whatever.

But all of that was just a little boy who thought girls were pretty and wanted to hug them because that's what you do to people you like. I kept liking girls without thinking about it...as you do...but didn't land my first real concentrated crush until a new girl started on the first day of the sixth grade. Alyson Stewart had frizzy red hair and thick-framed glasses and laughed like somebody had punched her in the stomach. She was a good half foot taller than all the other girls, thought cursing was fun, and taught me how to play Chinese jump rope. She liked my friend Joel but I always had been and always will be a foolish, patient, hopeful sap. Alyson, though, was the first one to send me into that wide-eyed, twitterpated, doodling-hearts-in-notebooks sort of obsession. She was also the catalyst for my latent allergy.

Gym class in grade school follows a rigid schedule that presents the students with a different theme or category of activities each week. Every year, we went through the cycle of badminton week to soccer week to floor hockey week to running week et cetera. I'm only assuming based on my recollection of there being safety mats on the floor and by merit of the fact that we were practicing handstands that said catalyst was somewhere in the middle of gymnastics week. Split off into pairs, we were instructed to spot our partners while we all did headstands and handstands against the wall. I'll have you know that I was completely incapable of standing on my head. BUT! I can tell you that Alyson was more than prepared to show off her handstanding ability. And that, my friend, was the very moment that something glorious and terrifying was awakened in me. This was the sixth grade. I think I was maybe 11 years old? It's been almost two decades and my memory of that moment is just as clear as if it was last week. I was just sort of lazily glancing around the gymnasium while my partner, Andrew, pulled off his acrobatics with ease and it was really just half a fraction of a second that I happened to notice Alyson flip up against the wall and swing back down quickly to tuck her tshirt back into her jeans. But that was all I needed. Obviously the black band I saw strapped around the back of her ribcage was some version of a training bra or what have you. But to my watery, innocent eyes, it was the finest lingerie and that brief blip in time was the sexiest thing I had ever seen; the only sexy thing I had ever seen.

"Casey."

"Hmm? What? Did you see that?"

Andrew had peeled himself from the wall and was waiting to watch me struggle against gravity for five minutes.

"See what?"

"Alyson. Her shirt just fell down."

"Did you see her nipples?"

"What?! No..."

"Then so what?"

"So what it was awesome."

"I saw my sister's nipples once."

Andrew had six sisters in high school. They were all terrifying. I was about to launch into a diatribe on exactly how gross that was when my throat clamped shut and I bent double under a torrent of coughs and hacks. I squeaked out a "whatever."

"What'sat?"

"I said whatever," I breathed and scratched my arm.

Then the seventh grade science teacher--he taught Phys. Ed. to the lower grades when our teachers got sick of us—blew his whistle and relieved me from the Herculean task he'd thrust upon me. I peeked over at Alyson whenever I thought she wasn't looking, full of curiosity and longing as we all meandered back to our classrooms. There were only two sixth grade classes in our school and of course she wasn't in mine so instead of having the opportunity to gaze pathetically at her hair for the rest of the day, I paused like a doofus in the doorway and watched her disappear though theirs.

"Go..."

My reverie was interrupted by dumb Erin James' nasally voice and ridiculous fuzzy sweater. I awkwardly turned on my heel and shuffled through the door to escape the static wail of her impatience. Sinking into my chair, I sighed forlornly and tried to stare through the wall to my true love. The ringing Erin's stupid voice had caused was still echoing around my skull. I turned and whispered to my friend Britney,

"Do you hear that?"

"What did you say?" she chuckled.

I had to yell now to hear myself over the screech.

"I asked if you could hear that sound!"

"Casey, keep your voice down," Ms. Dublin was glaring at me from her desk.

Another cluster of aggressive coughs railed my body and the room went dark. I felt something slam into my head and heard my breath trying to escape from my lungs. A couple of the girls gave a shriek of terror, but they had nothing on the cacophony in my head.

The next ten minutes felt like three hours. It was like listening to a carnival barker in slow motion in a pitch black room with a cold vise on my lips and helium pumping into my arms. At one point gravity shifted and the dark room moved around me as I catapulted through nothingness. The room shook violently a couple times and suddenly gravity was back and something was pressing against the back of my head. The carnival barker was still somewhere above me, heaving out his nightmare spiel. Then he suddenly stopped and something pierced my shoulder. My entire body was inhaled into the ground as the helium rushed through the hole in my arm and a pinprick of light appeared in front of my face. It gradually grew until everything was ceiling panels.

“How are we doing, Mr. Kittlaus? You really gave us a scare, there.”

The school nurse, Mrs. Ruele, was peering at me over her old lady spectacles. She was only in her early 30s, maybe, but she had obviously bought her glasses without consulting a friend. Or a mirror. I moved to prop myself up on my shoulder but she gently pressed me back into the cot.

“Not quite yet, Casey. You had anaphylaxis. You need to rest for a while.”

A bungee cord had been stretched between my bowels and neck.

“Whurs anflaxiz?” The vise was still on my lips.

“I’ll explain when your parents get here.”

My pelvis continued to pull down on my chin and vice versa.

“Uhn gurna sherd merh prnts.”

“You need to breathe, Casey. I can’t understand you.”

I struggled against the tension on my neck to drag some air down into my lungs. The moment I hit what felt like a regular rhythm, the bungee cord snapped. I felt my head roll back and an unnerving looseness course through my body. I squirmed uselessly on the cot, my eyes wide.

“I said I’m going to shit my pants!”

“Language! The feeling will pass in a moment. Just lay back and rest. We’ll talk it all through when your parents get here. They're on their way.”

I let my weight sag into the cot and stared hopelessly and confused at the ceiling. I didn't even have a guess as to what Anna's Flack Tits was, but it had to have something to do with Erin. I was feeling just fine until she did her weird voodoo head thing. I tried retracing my steps for other possible causes of my AFT. I'd had Honey Nut Cheerios for breakfast like almost every other morning. The walk to school took exactly thirteen minutes and could practically have been a step-by-step reproduction of every other walk to school; nothing out of place. We'd done math and social studies in the morning and they were boring as usual. We played Chinese jump rope at recess and the only abnormalty was some first grade girl toddling up and kissing Joeseph K on the arm and running away giggling to her little friends. Britney called him a cradle robber and we laughed our asses off. After recess, we'd gone straight to gym and...

The image of Alyson's swaddled ribcage floated through my head and my blood reversed direction. I felt a stirring in my shorts and tried to roll onto my side in a panic but another fit of coughing kicked my arm out from under me and I collapsed on my back, convulsing with each hack. Mrs. Ruele skittered back into the room and steadied my shaking with a hand on my shoulder.

“Casey? Try to relax and breathe deeply. You need to breathe right now, hun.”

It felt like I was micromanaging each step of the breathing process.

Okay, expand the lungs....

Now contrict. Feel the air? Push the air upwards and out.

That's right, up aaaaaand out! Good job!

Now find some more air and grab it...

yup, grab...

grab that air, good, now pull it down.

Down,

down,

down, pull harder, down...GOOOOOOOOD.

That's one.

It felt like Mrs. Ruele and I sat nodding at each other on the side of the cot for another three hours. Her face calm and reassuring, mine desperate and terrified. She was still coaching me on the basics of not dying when my parents strode in ten minutes later.

“We're so sorry. Greg was in the middle of a demonstration in the North East and I was waiting for him and thought I should come but the bus might have taken longer oh my god Casey.”

My mother swept past my dad and knelt down beside the cot, folding me into her and smothering my head.

“Mum, I'm fine,” I wheezed.

“Yes, but you weren't. Theresa, why is he talking like that?”

Mrs. Ruele and my mother used to sell perfume or make Tupperware or something together. It was always weird hearing grown-ups call each other by their first names.

“He had a bit of an asthma attack. He's calmed down now though.”

“Asthma? I though he grew out of that six years ago.”

“Well that's what we need to talk about. When was the last time you had Casey tested for allergies?”

My parents glanced at each other with identical looks of confused concern.

“Just last year. He got sick after a visit to his uncle's house. We thought it might have been the dogs.”

“I could have told you that,” I offered drily. Kids think sarcasm makes them sound more mature.

“And nothing came up?”

My dad leaned forward and shook his head, “It was just a coinicidence,” he insisted.

This time it was Mrs. Ruele's turn to look concerned.

“Listen, what exactly happened?” my mother demanded.

“Casey,” sighed the nursed, “went into anaphylactic shock shortly after returning from gym class. I just can't figure out why. If you say he has no known allergies, it's a complete mystery to me. You're going to have to take him to a specialist.”

My parents listened to all this with increasingly terrified faces. I looked from one face to the other to the other while they silently gaped at each other. Then something occurred to me.

“Wait. You mean my body stopped working because I'm allergic to something?”

“Probably.”

“Like orange pop?”

My dad choked out a chuckle and my mom stared at me. Mrs. Ruele just looked confused.

“Not quite, Case. But we're going to figure it out, okay? Terry, is Casey excused for the rest of the day?”

The nurse nodded, “But make sure he gets tested as soon as possible.”

We were already halfway through the teachers' lounge.

“Of course. ASAP!”

An Abundance of A's Amassed and an Apologue Articulated Posted by Sad Blogger , at Friday, July 27, 2012, in

Having avoided arrest and auspiciously attained atonement for every atrocity, the animal absconds from his active application of artifice and aligns his ambitions with activities more appropriate for an average inhabitant. Astutely adhering to the arduous aphorisms ascribed to him, the ambitious adept applies admirable aptitude to every assignment and accepts adulation amidst his associates. Almost acheiving absolute ascendancy, and approaching an appointment among the apprentice and his administrator, the adjusted and ameliorated applicant accomplishes the about-face he had always aimed at.

Well At Least This One Starts Off Cheerful Posted by Sad Blogger , at Friday, July 27, 2012, in

I obviously still have not figured out how to embed streaming audio, but I've signed up for a couple different hosting sites so now it's just going to be a process of elimination. However, since I'm putting all of this together on my work computer, you'll have to bear with another collection of YouTube links until I can get on my own machine.

1. Kishi Bashi - Bright Whites

I just found this one yesterday while trawling through old episodes of "All Songs Considered" Tiny Desk Concerts on NPR's Youtube channel. This album version is nowhere near the bizarre, prodigious, musical arts-and-crafts session that Kishi puts together for NPR, but it is a lot easier to sit back and enjoy. Not having any sort of comprehension of the Japanese lyrics laced throughout, for me they add a level of whimsy. They conjure up images of running on beaches or hang gliding or riding unicycles or something.

2. The Parlotones - Push Me to the Floor

These guys, while massively popular in their home country of South Africa, were just sort of languishing in global obscurity since 2003. Until they showed up at SXSW this year and were able to jump off of the acclaim that earned them to begin touring with Coldplay. I don't know why I decided to start giving you their biography rather than just make comments on the song. Probably something to do with not really having much to say and wanting to show off that I know something about something.

3. The Love Language - Stars

I somehow end up wending my way to this song every time that I listen to music because it is perfect. I love that it's about a girl named Kathleen because how often do you hear a song for a Kathleen. I love the yearning twang of the guitars. I love their peaking voices all layered and staggered over top of each other. It makes me think of a circle of men on a porch, howling at the moon. Night delivers cold shivers. And so does this song.

4. The Mountain Goats - Going to Georgia

Quite obviously, this is not the album version, but to me it is so much better. Even though he trips over one of the lyrics, you have to know it's because he's just so into the ferocity and the passion of the song. The words have to be almost yelled because that's how important they are. The lines:

The most remarkable thing about you standing in the doorway

is that it's you

and you're standing in the doorway

are such goosebump-inducing characterizations of the simplicity of something being remarkable; something being perfect and right and awesome. Then the downward curve of "SMIIIIILE" and the slight quaver of "when you ease the gun from my hand". Everything about everything he says with this song is amazing to me and then you add the forceful, driving strumming of the guitar and all that comes out of me are sighs of satisfaction, jealousy, inspiration, and rage.

5. Brian Lopez - Montjuic

Brian Lopez took the inspiration for this song from the long, broad hill that overlooks the harbour in Barcelona, Spain. I couldn't necessarily tell you how one draws inspiration from a hill, but you can dwell on it while you give the song a listen.

6. The Bowerbirds - In Our Talons

I can't remember where exactly I heard this song for the first time, but I know that it has become one of the default songs I share with people when they cry out for new music. Who doesn't love eerie, harmonized imitations of screeching birds or meandering accordion woven over the world's oldest-sounding guitar? I think this song is so unique and just the right mix of upbeat, pretty, and haunting. Plus it comes with a quirky stopmotion video. What's not to love?

7. Annuals - Always Do



This one tends to end up playing immediately after Stars by The Love Language. I couldn't tell you why, but they've just always gone hand in hand for me. They don't sound the same, they're not really about the same things, but I guess they just both have that note of desperation and painful wanting. But the mix of the pedal steel guitars and the cacophony of crash cymbals and the almost Brand New-esque screaming at the end...ugh so goddamn listen-to-able.

8. Frightened Rabbit - Fast Blood

I think that there was brief period when I would have claimed this was my favorite song by Frightened Rabbit. Then it was Backwards Walk. Then it was Old, Old Fashioned, then Keep Yourself Warm, then Modern Leper, then Good Arms vs. Bad Arms. And I have to admit that I completely forgot that this song even existed until I tossed Midnight Organ Fight on shuffle last night and had my heart seized and mangled and broken and mended by this song. And then again for the rest of the night and some of this morning. Listen to the lyrics and try to count how many goosebumps break out on your arms.

midnight organ fight
yours gives into mine
it's all right
and the fast blood
hurricanes through me

How. Fucking. SEXY is that? I was riding the bus this morning and letting the words make love to my ears and that bit just tears me up. I wanted to make out with the window and ravage the seat in front of me (calm down, I was the only one on the bus). But yeah. Good freaking song.
 
9. Sharon Van Etten - Much More Than That
 

K so I couldn't help veering off back into my depressing music. And I really don't have much to say about this song. I think sometimes it's my life. I can tell you I always pictured Sharon as like this little, pixie-looking girl. She's looks more like Winona Ryder in Beetljuice gained some weight. Not that that's a thought that needed to make it's way into this...article? It was really just all I had to say.

10. Joanna Newsom - Does Not Suffice



Joanna Newsom is brilliant and bizarre and unsettling and a genius. This is a great song. She has better songs. But this is the first of hers that I heard and the one that sent me tumbling down the rabbit hole of needing-to-always-be-listening-to-music-by-Joanna Newsom. It may, though, be one of the saddest relationship songs ever written. So that's something. 

Finding My Way Back to Here - Chapter 2 Posted by Sad Blogger , 25.7.12 at Wednesday, July 25, 2012, in

Staring out the window of my dad’s Explorer is a surreal shift from the active monotony the ward’s windows had to offer. The trees and fence posts and then the streetlamps and buildings scrolling past leave little to the imagination but there’s something calming and fantastic at the same time about the world just playing itself out for you.You know? Like why put all the work into imagining there’s other stuff going on when there’s all this stuff just there for you to fly by and take in? Isn’t it enough to even just process all the STUFF that’s just lying around? Anyways, we were mostly quiet, still, while my dad drove and my mom’s head stayed pointed in the same direction the entire time. I breathe out an amused half-snort at the thought that she was probably staring at the glass not unlike I had been back in the ward. My dad turns briefly in response to the sudden sound but I’m watching the buildings again.

“So they set you up with another doctor for visits or anything, Ty?”

“I don’t know if I really want to talk about it right now.”

My mom, “That’s fine, hun.”

Dad gave her a look like it wasn’t fine but she was watching the window again so he turned back to driving silently. I don’t know how else it was supposed to go. Like we were going to turn on some Danny Elfman soundtrack and discuss my plans for the rest of my life. Or I’d sit in the middle seat, pushed up against the backs of their seats and enthusiastically describe all the swell realizations I’d made about myself in therapy. Like we were on some jovial, bouncing ride in Pa’s jalopy after a fun-filled summer away at camp. As if. Imagine us crammed into an old Model-A or whatever with Mom all Thelma-and-Louis’ed up and Dad in a leather jacket with some of those pilot’s goggles and a scarf streaming out behind him. I silent-snort again and Dad whips around again, looking all mad. He probably thinks I’m laughing at Mom shutting him down.
I start to notice that the blur outside the window is turning into my parents’ neighborhood.

“Hey! Why aren’t we going to my place?”

Mom turns to face me for the first time, “Your car was impounded. You'll have lunch with us, then Layne is picking you up at 2.”

Layne was a guy I went to high school with who I didn’t really like, but he was under the impression we were best friends because we used to eat lunch at the same table. He was a major stoner and he lived with his major stoner girlfriend in a house that his grandma or aunt or something left to him when she died. It might have been his mom. I know it was a lady. Whoever it was, I don’t think he really cared and she probably hadn’t known him very well because I think if I was a dying lady, I would have left my house to somebody who got their hair cut sometimes and didn’t smell like wet leaves. Whatever, dying ladies can do whatever they want I guess. But because Layne was under the impression we were friends, he let me live in his basement for almost nothing. By ‘almost’ I more mean ‘usually’. When he first offered me the basement, I asked him about rent and his response was, “Sure thing.” So sometimes I give him cash when I think I won’t need it, but mostly it’s a non-issue.

Anyways, lunch with my nervous parents didn’t sound particularly appealing, but it was better than listening to Layne and Cassidy playing Halo upstairs while I ate cereal alone at my desk. I still didn’t particularly want to have to talk about what comes next, but it was an inevitability. Maybe they wouldn’t even bring it up now. We could talk about the virus Mom got on her work computer and how she thought to herself, “Ty could have handled this in a second huh-yuk-yuk.” Then Dad could drone about ‘the boys down at The P&W’ and all their tribulations and how the world was a different place (yep yep yep) and something about something his old man had told him and how his old man was right this whole time and then the meal would be over and I could go home finally.

But obviously that wasn’t going to be the case.

As we turned onto their street, I had a brief flashback of the last time I was here. My hands tensed and I realized they’d been wrapped around my little month’s supply of meds the whole time. I stuffed them in my hoodie and flicked at my mom’s headrest self-consciously. “Here we are!” she felt it necessary to announce as the Explorer pulled into the driveway. You have to imagine that when people do that, they do realize everyone else is capable of recognizing an arrival at a destination. Is it more of a neurotic confirmation that everything is as it should be? Here we are!...Right? We’re all here, aren’t we? From now on when I go places, I’m going to cheerfully announce to everyone, “We can’t ever truly know if we exist!” just to see if it has any effect.

Inside the house, I drop my hoodie on the chair that’s usually mine and survey the kitchen for the promised meal. In true form, my mother had set out plates and silverware before she left but hadn’t made any preparations to actually serve anything.

But wait...a wintery breath from the freezer...a desert-y cough from the oven..small talk...tick tock tick...a lasagna emerges...we sit.

The last time I had that 20-minute lasagna that comes in the tin was like nine years ago. I got food poisoning from it and spent an entire day and night either wrapped around the toilet waiting to throw up or crouched over the toilet waiting to stop throwing up again. So this time I didn’t hesitate to dump it down my gullet as quick as possible in the hopes it would send me into shock or something and at least I could get away from my parents. But whatever indignation my father had felt on the drive here must have taken up residence on my mom’s plate because he mostly just watched her fork and knife while she ate. And all the questions and advice I’d thought she’d have prepared for me had apparently asked a stream of celebrity gossip and weather predictions to cover their shift. So I just sort of sat there picking at the crusty bits around the edge of the tin and nodded at my mother’s yapping.


“So I think it’s going to go up to something like 98° tomorrow.”


I could feel the lasagna declaring war on my digestive system.

“Speaking of which, did you hear about Nick Lachey marrying that Jennifer Simpson?”


Digestive system requests a parley but the lasagna laughs in its face.


“I don’t know what such talented young men ever see in those show business floozies in the first place.”


The lasagna determines that it will be most effective to divide and conquer, firing a volley of tracer rounds at my stomach, intestines, and colon.


“I mean Justin Timberlake dating that Britney Spearie girl and Nick Carter getting into fights at bars. There are no more heroes in the world, Tyler.”


Straining under the onslaught, my digestive system groans its protestations and attempts to fight off the assault with a fierce shudder.


“Tyler? You’ve been awful quiet. Are you still hungry? There’s still some...Tyler, what’s wrong?!”


I’d pointed my convulsing body in the direction of the bathroom and lurched from my chair in hopes that the momentum alone would get me there. Bent double, I lumbered towards the shimmering, porcelain refuge I knew to be housed down the hall. My mom’s confusion and my dad’s irritability were barely audible over the hellish snarling coming from my bowels. But then above all the noise I heard my mother screeching,


“Walter! He’s GOING for the GUNS!”


I stopped and turned to face them. I felt the hordes waging war in my guts drop their weapons and retreat in abrupt surrender as every recess of my body was filled with a foreign sensation. It was like I could suddenly feel all my bits and pieces the way they looked in those anatomy cut-away books. I could feel each vein and artery and muscle and tendon seize up like they were individual plastic tubes. I felt my face heating up and my arms tensing and it was like there was a completely other body inside mine.


“MOM!” What the FUCK?!?”


They both stared at me like I’d just burst from the floor dressed like Adam Ant. My dad was halfway out of his chair with his fork and knife still in his hands. Mom just stood there with her dumb mouth hanging open, looking to him, to me, to him, to me. Six seconds felt like twenty while I just glared at them and felt my blood being blood. It wasn’t like you see in shitty action flicks when an angry dude will stand there with his shoulders hunched and his eyebrows scrunched, all breathing hard and whatnot. It wasn’t that I felt more powerful or any nonsense like that, but I was just so aware of all the hard warmth coursing through me. I wanted to be infuriated forever. But then the lasagna noticed the smoke drifting up over my digestive system’s camp and took advantage of the situation to mount their blitz. My stomach gave a startled gurgle and time skipped a beat as the fake pasta I’d shoveled into my body erupted from my mouth.

I wiped some lasagna-y mush off my lip with a fist, "I was going for the bathroom."

I walked to the kitchen sink and rinsed my mouth out from the tap while my parents awkwardly settled themselves back at the table. Turning and grabbing my hoodie from the chair, I stepped quickly to the front door. Knob in hand, I turned to my parents,

"I'm fine. I'm going to walk home. I'll call you."

The door closed on my mother stammering something about a crumb cake.

I felt like an album cover for a shitty emo band, trudging through the leaf-littered gutter with my hood up and hands shoved down the pockets. I don't think I actually cared that my parents didn't know where my mind was at. That was mostly my fault anyways. They were concerned and that's fine. I just needed to be home. My home. I looked up as a car moseyed by and remembered sauntering down the same street for guitar lessons when I was a kid, always hoping somebody would take pity on the kid with the heavy guitar case and offer to give me a ride. Not even hoping; expecting. As though anybody in the world is paying that much attention to anyone else, let alone giving a fuck. I smiled and nodded at a girl as she walked by with her dog and while I started dreaming up what our first house would look like and what we would name our kids, she silently worried about an upcoming exam or what she would make for dinner and I didn't exist to her.

I fall in love with everyone on the planet.