All right, for all you gossip columnists out there, I have found a best man (Joe Boxman) and my groomsmen (Forrest and my brother Eric). I've asked Nick to sing "In My Life" by The Beatles. He claims to be learning it without sheet music, which means he'll learn it in the wrong key and then insist he's right. Oh, well. At least the lyrics will come through clearly.
Is it weird for me to say it didn't quite feel like Christmas for me this year? Maybe it's because I was so busy with work and school (and the lack of a television, meaning I didn't see any Christmas commercials), or the fact that I was in Bloomington until the night of 12/24, and back within 48 hours. I don't quite know what it was - probably all of the above factors.
Regardless, with this being the first year ever that I bought Christmas presents with my own money, I learned a new meaning to the Holiday. I got used CD's and DVD's for my family, but I made sure it was something they would love.
Perfect example: Any time a song by Three Dog Night would come on the radio, Mom ALWAYS mentioned how this was the first band she ever saw in concert and how the song takes her back to 8th grade. So I got her the best of Three Dog Night. See? Thoughtful!
On an unrelated note, Kieth Buchanan (Graham's ex-boyfriend and my former roommate) has left Bloomington. He didn't have everything quite as ready as I'd thought he would for move-out day, so between that and the awful ice storm we had on 12/23, I couldn't take him up to the Greyhound station in Indianapolis. Thankfully, a friend of his came over from Cincinnati to help him pack. He took him up there, so everything worked out.
I don't know if I mentioned this, but Kieth was gone from just before Thanksgiving to 12/18. He originally thought it was going to be a week long excursion to be there for his mother in the wake of his parents' divorce. It turned into a month because of the infrequency of buses going through his corner of Oklahoma.
Meanwhile, Graham has been dating a new guy since before finals. One night Graham was having him over and had a table and wine glasses and candles set up. It was really sweet. He asked me not to tell Kieth about it. Unfortunately, Graham is such a damned slob that all the dishes and the candles and EVERYTHING was still out, including a wine spill on the tablecloth. It would have been a little difficult to convince Kieth that what he saw was my mess since I'm never over there for recreational purposes.
Since Graham left the entire place looking as though the Rapture had occurred in the middle of a dinner party I had no problem telling him what had gone on in his absence.
Graham is now moving into a new phase of his life: he has started going to church. Anyone else I would be happy for them. For Graham, I don't know - something doesn't smell right about this.
I don't want to go into too many details, but Graham was scheduled to fly out 12/22. When he heard Kieth was going to be back on the 18th, he rescheduled for a flight on 12/17 so that he didn't have to see him. He also took a piece of Kieth's luggage and his modem. Graham also left Kieth a very impersonal note saying "I hope you find what it is you're looking for in life. Please don't take anything that isn't yours. Happy Holidays! --- g "
I'll admit, my first impressions of Kieth weren't good. But in the time I got to know him, I really came to like him a lot. Hey, hey, my, my, how the tables have turned.
There is a sense of melancholy about all this in that I may never see him again. Life has taken him to Colorado, and for me, well, that's still yet to be decided.
An acquaintance of mine on Facebook had this posted on her profile as a note. I figured this would make for a better year-end recap than any sort of uber-verbose rant:
Q: What did you do in 2008 that you had never done before?
A: Visited Bowling Green, OH. I worked as the grading assistant for Zappa, Hendrix, and (in a limited capacity) Beatles. I also got engaged to the right woman.
Q: Did you keep your new years resolutions?
A: My secret resolution was to win Shelley back, but that stemmed all the way to November after Kate and I broke up. Still, it was only 6 days into the new year that it happened. So, yes. I did.
Q: What would you like to have in 09 that you didn't have in 08?
A: A career in a graduate program somewhere. Anywhere but here. That and a wife.
Q: What dates in 08 will remain etched upon your memory?
A: January 6th, June 13th and 14th, October 31st (for good and awful reasons), November 20th - 22nd, and December 13th.
Q: Did you suffer from any injury?
A: Broken spirits and crushed egos count, right? Then yes.
Q: Best thing someone bought for you as a gift?
A: Shelley got me The Boondocks DVD back in January. It made me really happy.
Q: Where did most of your money go?
A: An engagement ring, CD's, the occasional DVD, groceries, pizza, gas, Alabama...
Q: What did you get really excited about?
A: The prospect of asking Shelley to marry me (I started making payments in July), working at Spencer's, working at the school (yeah, I know...), my senior year as an IMP student, going up to Bowling Green and seeing Rick again, living off-campus, buying a cat.
Q: What song will always remind you of 08?
A: Oh, yeah, right, this will be a brief answer...
JANUARY - "The Boondocks Theme" by Asheru, "Cinnamon Girl" by Neil Young (I just saw - I had this for January of 2008 when I wrote my 2007 recap! Care to know why? The song reminded me of Shelley!)
FEBRUARY - "Mammon" by Todd Rundgren, "King Tubby Meets The Rockers Uptown" by Augustus Pablo
MARCH - "A Day In The Life" by Jeff Beck, all of Trout Mask Replica by Captain Beefheart
APRIL - "Swastikas On Parade" by The Residents
MAY - "Hard Time Killin' Floor Blues" by Skip James, "Killing Floor (Live)" by The Jimi Hendrix Experience
JUNE - "Mama Talk To Your Daughter" by J.B. Lenoir, "Changes" by Band Of Gypsys
JULY - "Orange Claw Hammer (Acoustic)" by Captain Beefheart & Frank Zappa, "Morphine Song" by Ray Davies
AUGUST - The entire After The Gold Rush album by Neil Young
SEPTEMBER - "Like A Hurricane" by Neil Young, "King's Lead Hat" by Brian Eno
OCTOBER - "Hey, Hey, My, My (Into The Black)" by Neil Young, "The Train Kept A-Rollin'" by The Johnny Burnette Rock 'N Roll Trio, "Susie Q" by Dale Hawkins
NOVEMBER - , "Kick Out The Jams" by The MC5, "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" by Gil Scott Heron
DECEMBER - "Ever Fallen In Love?" by The Buzzcocks, "Everything I Own" by Ken Boothe
Q: Favorite TV programs of 08?
A: The Office
Q: What was your greatest musical discovery?
A: Um...Neil Young, Captain Beefheart, and The Residents
Q: Best book you read this year?
A: Ray Davies: Not Like Everybody Else by Tom Kitts
Q: Favorite Film of this year?
A: Burn After Reading and Harold
Q: How would I describe my fashion concept of 08?
A: Hmm...I invested in a Che shirt and a hammer and sickle shirt early on this calendar year. I'd say that set the stage fairly well. Seeing as we now have a Socialist president. (Oh, and by the way, I'm BEING sarcastic!)
Q: Which celebs did you fancy the most in 08?
A: Ray Davies, Jimmy Carl Black (RIP fellow drummer), and Neil Young
Q: Who do you miss?
A: Rick Chandler and Eric Condon. Easily.
Q: What countries did you visit in 08?
A: Papua New Guinea, Equitorial Guinea, New Guinea
Q: Biggest achievement?
A: Engagement.
Q: Did you fall in love in 08?
A: Yes. And it's a beautiful thing.
Q: What's one thing that would have made your year more satisfying?
A: For Condon to put his violin down and apply himself, for Sarah to butt out of things she knows nothing about like people's relationships, for Gill to break up with Amanda, for Johnson to get his license, for Shelley to be assertive and honest with her parents, for Mom to mind her own damn business, for Mary to cheer up and be happy knowing she is alive, for Andy to have not jumped to such asinine conclusions and not written me off as a thief and liar, for Joel to have been a better bandleader, and for Laura to stop being a crotch-hopping pothead who flirts with any guy she sees.
Q: Did you learn anything valuable?
A: I learned not to waste people's time with blogs and emails and shit.
"A very Merry Christmas, and a happy New Year. Let's hope it's a good one, without any tears." Or is it "fear"? Whatever, I like "tears" better.
(No, seriously. This year kind of sucked. I really don't know how I could have gotten through it without Shelley. I wish I was kidding.)
Alex
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Monday, December 15, 2008
Roll Over, Trump, and Tell Ted Koppel The News
The real crime, I think, is the hair.
Seriously, did he really think he could get away with it? Selling a seat in the United States Senate. It was so flagrant that he might as well have put it up on craigslist.com.
But, GOD, that hair! I know, I know, your man Mitch doesn't exactly have a suave aura about him either (you aren't fooling anyone with that comb-over, fruitcake)...I still don't know what's worse.
And to think, this guy was proposing he could - maybe - take the Senate seat for himself if (and I'm paraphrasing here) "No-fucking-body fucking else had the fucking money for this fucking seat in the fucking Senate", which in turn meant he would make a bid for the Presidency in 2016. Make no bones about it, people, there be crooks in both parties, old school (*cough* Ted Stevens, the Clintons) or new (Rod Blagojevich, Sarah Palin).
Also - I'm engaged now.
Alex
Friday, December 12, 2008
Humor The 13 Year Old Girl In Me
Deep down, I secretly love these things. For the love of God answer it.
What would you do if..
1. I died:
2. I kissed you:
3. I lived next door to you:
4. You found out I was married:
5. I stole something:
6. I was hospitalized:
7. I refused to leave my home:?
8. I got into a fight while you were there:
What do you think about my...
9. Personality:
10. Eyes:
11. Hair:
12. Family:
Would you...
13. Help me hide a body?
14. Keep a secret if I told you one?
15. Hold my hand?
16. Take a bullet for me?
17. Go on an extended road trip with me?
18. Try to solve my problems?
19. Help me kill a man? Woman? Domestic animal? Endangered species? The neighbors' dogs?
20. Scratch my ass?
Have you ever...
21. Lied to make me feel better?
22. Wanted to kiss me?
23. Wanted to kill me?
24. Broke my heart?
25. Kept something important from me?
26. Thought I was unbearably annoying?
More...
27. Who are you?
28. Are we friends?
29. When and how did we meet?
30. Describe me in three words:
31. What was your first impression?
32. Do you still think that way about me now?
33. What reminds you of me?
34. If you could give me anything, what would it be?
35. How well do you know me?
36. When's the last time you saw me?
37. Ever wanted to tell me something but couldn't?
Um...thanks in advance for your responses. I look forward to reading all two of them.
What would you do if..
1. I died:
2. I kissed you:
3. I lived next door to you:
4. You found out I was married:
5. I stole something:
6. I was hospitalized:
7. I refused to leave my home:?
8. I got into a fight while you were there:
What do you think about my...
9. Personality:
10. Eyes:
11. Hair:
12. Family:
Would you...
13. Help me hide a body?
14. Keep a secret if I told you one?
15. Hold my hand?
16. Take a bullet for me?
17. Go on an extended road trip with me?
18. Try to solve my problems?
19. Help me kill a man? Woman? Domestic animal? Endangered species? The neighbors' dogs?
20. Scratch my ass?
Have you ever...
21. Lied to make me feel better?
22. Wanted to kiss me?
23. Wanted to kill me?
24. Broke my heart?
25. Kept something important from me?
26. Thought I was unbearably annoying?
More...
27. Who are you?
28. Are we friends?
29. When and how did we meet?
30. Describe me in three words:
31. What was your first impression?
32. Do you still think that way about me now?
33. What reminds you of me?
34. If you could give me anything, what would it be?
35. How well do you know me?
36. When's the last time you saw me?
37. Ever wanted to tell me something but couldn't?
Um...thanks in advance for your responses. I look forward to reading all two of them.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Lost In The Woods
I'll admit, I've been in a funk this past month or so. Maybe I wouldn't have so much contempt for you-know-who if our little episode had happened during a less loaded period in my life. But it triggered lots of self-doubt and was just ill-timed.
My association with this person will be strictly professional come January, even then I won't have to deal with them directly but once or twice. The graduate applications will be submitted by the time of my birthday (1/11 - I expect checks in the mail from each of you), and from then it will be out of my hands until I hear back. Whatever the decisions may be.
What I'm saying is while I'm not quite out of the woods yet, I see a village in the distance. Could be Bowling Green. Could be New York. Could be someplace I haven't even thought about yet. (On that note, I've got a resume to prepare. I hate entertaining the very thought of me not getting into a graduate program, but there's always a chance.) All I know is it's not going to be Bloomington.
And it's definitely not going to be Seymour.
Special thanks to Neil Young and The Clash for bringing me out of this dark place. Funny I write this on such a sunny day.
At least I've learned some things from this. I saw a two month old entry where I said I would miss IU and not harbor any bad feelings. On Halloween I was given every reason in the world to get my ass out of here once I was done. Bad feelings? Well, they are aimed at one specific person. He has probably moved on, whatever. He's wired different from the rest of the human race.
I've also learned that no matter what the message is - preacher or professor - people can be total hypocrites. Everybody has a side they don't show often, whether it's a shy little girl or boy inside a very extroverted person, or a complete jerk hiding within a very cool and charismatic exterior. It probably goes without saying that I learned how NOT to do things, as well.
It makes me feel like a complete idiot. How much derision have I had towards what Frank Zappa called the "check-mailing nincompoops" who waste their time and money on glorified snake oil salesmen turning a profit off our own inherent fear of doomsday and Armageddon? And yet I did the exact same thing with (fuck it, might as well) Andy.
The big lesson from all this is that until I met Andy I was still marching to my own drummer. I didn't owe anyone anything and sought out to impress no one beyond myself. Perhaps I should go back to being my own person again. At least then I won't have anyone to disappoint, amuse, or amaze but me.
I've got to admit, it's getting better. Getting better all the time. (It can't get any worse.)
Alex
My association with this person will be strictly professional come January, even then I won't have to deal with them directly but once or twice. The graduate applications will be submitted by the time of my birthday (1/11 - I expect checks in the mail from each of you), and from then it will be out of my hands until I hear back. Whatever the decisions may be.
What I'm saying is while I'm not quite out of the woods yet, I see a village in the distance. Could be Bowling Green. Could be New York. Could be someplace I haven't even thought about yet. (On that note, I've got a resume to prepare. I hate entertaining the very thought of me not getting into a graduate program, but there's always a chance.) All I know is it's not going to be Bloomington.
And it's definitely not going to be Seymour.
Special thanks to Neil Young and The Clash for bringing me out of this dark place. Funny I write this on such a sunny day.
At least I've learned some things from this. I saw a two month old entry where I said I would miss IU and not harbor any bad feelings. On Halloween I was given every reason in the world to get my ass out of here once I was done. Bad feelings? Well, they are aimed at one specific person. He has probably moved on, whatever. He's wired different from the rest of the human race.
I've also learned that no matter what the message is - preacher or professor - people can be total hypocrites. Everybody has a side they don't show often, whether it's a shy little girl or boy inside a very extroverted person, or a complete jerk hiding within a very cool and charismatic exterior. It probably goes without saying that I learned how NOT to do things, as well.
It makes me feel like a complete idiot. How much derision have I had towards what Frank Zappa called the "check-mailing nincompoops" who waste their time and money on glorified snake oil salesmen turning a profit off our own inherent fear of doomsday and Armageddon? And yet I did the exact same thing with (fuck it, might as well) Andy.
The big lesson from all this is that until I met Andy I was still marching to my own drummer. I didn't owe anyone anything and sought out to impress no one beyond myself. Perhaps I should go back to being my own person again. At least then I won't have anyone to disappoint, amuse, or amaze but me.
I've got to admit, it's getting better. Getting better all the time. (It can't get any worse.)
Alex
Thursday, November 27, 2008
I wrote lyrics tonight.
I'd like to think I'm getting better at it. I have had time to discover some intensely personal artists like Neil Young, Syd Barrett, Ray Davies...
Most of America saw reprieve in the form of Obama's nomination to the Presidency, but for me - aside from my college visit to Bowling Green State University - things have just sucked.
I've told you about the personal stuff with you-know-who via email. (Don't want to mention his name, lest it get brought to his attention.) Its resolution was anticlimactic to say the least. No one's in trouble. I wrote a song about him. I finished my song about Joel. By the way, I was writing a song about Joel. There's also another one I wrote about how hard it is to quit smoking.
Maybe some other day I'll post those up.
Long story short: my grandfather was diagnosed with a heart aneurysm (in his aorta) right before the wedding. They didn't tell any of us to keep spirits up. Knowing this could kill him at any second, I made a conscious effort to get a hold of him. Maybe it's because he and I were never close I felt obliged to attempt to make peace? I don't know. I called on Gramma's birthday, left a voicemail saying happy birthday and that Papa was in my prayers and thoughts. Gramma called me back and gave me the rundown - the aneurysm is not a high-risk presence. He could go on living his life as normal and pass away from some other natural cause, we're talking years.
Took the GRE on 11/15. I ate shit on it. Thankfully, ETS has my scores from last year, so any school I designated to receive my score this year will also get the scores from 2007. That's a load off.
Visiting Bowling Green was just awesome. The music library is like something out of a dream for me. It only confirmed my suspicion: that BGSU is my #1 choice for grad school. The only downside is it has just made me all the more paranoid that I won't get in. And I don't know what I'll do if I don't. I haven't given that much thought to it. I truly do not have a fall back or a safety or whatever...unlike last year, and that was because of my friendship with Andy.
Here's the song:
What Next? (The Bottom Drops Out)
Mom calls me up, says your granddad is sicker.
Doctor found out he's got a really bad ticker.
He could die any die, so pretend that you care,
It's harder to face since all I did was put on the airs.
And when you think things are bad, the bottom drops out.
Things can only get better from here, then the bottom drops out.
Boss calls and says "Sorry, man, but times are tough;
I got to take all my part-timers and lay all you off."
You're a paycheck away from buying that car,
But I might as well go and blow it all at the bar.
My friends are down and out, they can all use a fix.
Bartender, just give us the booze, don't even mess with the mix.
Scotty's losing his job, Pete's getting a divorce, and LJ is strung out on pills.
Bartender, another round while me and my friends sit and write out our wills.
And when you think things are bad, the bottom drops out.
Things can only get better from here, then the bottom drops out.
Am I gonna make it to sixty? Will I make it to forty?
Stress is fatal.
Do I wanna make it to sixty? Will I even want to see forty?
Life is fatal.
And when you think things are bad, the bottom drops out.
Things can only get better from here, then the bottom drops out.
Sitting at my parents', back from the cemetary
Because today was the day my grandfather got buried.
He died in his sleep of a heart attack,
It's at this inappropriate time I see that I look good in black.
It suits me well, matches my mood, makes me look thin, reflects my attitude.
Scotty found another job, LJ checked herself in, Pete's playing the bachelor game.
But for me it's still bad, life makes me so sad, everything's still the same.
So I'll sit here in black in this dimly lit room, wastin' on a cloudy afternoon.
And when you think things are bad, the bottom drops out.
Things can only get better from here, then the bottom drops out.
My better half's here but I'm all by myself, I sit and seethe, she sits and stares.
My guardian angel has left me in Hell, why can't I talk to this person I know really cares?
I love her so much but I'm too scared to think
So I go to the kitchen to fix me a drink.
The orange juice reminds me of a happy little boy,
The one whose biggest fear was losing his favorite toy.
He'd cry if he saw me, his ambitions all gone.
His life's now one big night without a hint of dawn.
And when you think things are bad, the bottom drops out.
Things can only get better from here, then the bottom drops out.
Am I gonna make it to sixty? Am I gonna see forty?
Stress is fatal.
Do I wanna make it to sixty? Will I even wanna see forty?
Life is fatal.
And when you think things are bad, the bottom drops out.
Things can only get better from here, then the bottom drops out.
Even if I knew where to look, there's no way out.
I'm trapped in a life full of fear and self-doubt.
Don't get too close - the real me is too scared to speak.
The one you know is bold and smart and turns the other cheek.
One disaster begets another, I sit here perplexed.
Both of me agree when we wonder what next
Will ruin our day, week, month, or year,
From a tiny paper cut to hitting a deer.
And when you think things are bad, the bottom drops out.
Things can only get better from here, then the bottom drops out.
And when you think things are bad, the bottom drops out.
Things can only get better from here, then the bottom drops out.
Most of America saw reprieve in the form of Obama's nomination to the Presidency, but for me - aside from my college visit to Bowling Green State University - things have just sucked.
I've told you about the personal stuff with you-know-who via email. (Don't want to mention his name, lest it get brought to his attention.) Its resolution was anticlimactic to say the least. No one's in trouble. I wrote a song about him. I finished my song about Joel. By the way, I was writing a song about Joel. There's also another one I wrote about how hard it is to quit smoking.
Maybe some other day I'll post those up.
Long story short: my grandfather was diagnosed with a heart aneurysm (in his aorta) right before the wedding. They didn't tell any of us to keep spirits up. Knowing this could kill him at any second, I made a conscious effort to get a hold of him. Maybe it's because he and I were never close I felt obliged to attempt to make peace? I don't know. I called on Gramma's birthday, left a voicemail saying happy birthday and that Papa was in my prayers and thoughts. Gramma called me back and gave me the rundown - the aneurysm is not a high-risk presence. He could go on living his life as normal and pass away from some other natural cause, we're talking years.
Took the GRE on 11/15. I ate shit on it. Thankfully, ETS has my scores from last year, so any school I designated to receive my score this year will also get the scores from 2007. That's a load off.
Visiting Bowling Green was just awesome. The music library is like something out of a dream for me. It only confirmed my suspicion: that BGSU is my #1 choice for grad school. The only downside is it has just made me all the more paranoid that I won't get in. And I don't know what I'll do if I don't. I haven't given that much thought to it. I truly do not have a fall back or a safety or whatever...unlike last year, and that was because of my friendship with Andy.
Here's the song:
What Next? (The Bottom Drops Out)
Mom calls me up, says your granddad is sicker.
Doctor found out he's got a really bad ticker.
He could die any die, so pretend that you care,
It's harder to face since all I did was put on the airs.
And when you think things are bad, the bottom drops out.
Things can only get better from here, then the bottom drops out.
Boss calls and says "Sorry, man, but times are tough;
I got to take all my part-timers and lay all you off."
You're a paycheck away from buying that car,
But I might as well go and blow it all at the bar.
My friends are down and out, they can all use a fix.
Bartender, just give us the booze, don't even mess with the mix.
Scotty's losing his job, Pete's getting a divorce, and LJ is strung out on pills.
Bartender, another round while me and my friends sit and write out our wills.
And when you think things are bad, the bottom drops out.
Things can only get better from here, then the bottom drops out.
Am I gonna make it to sixty? Will I make it to forty?
Stress is fatal.
Do I wanna make it to sixty? Will I even want to see forty?
Life is fatal.
And when you think things are bad, the bottom drops out.
Things can only get better from here, then the bottom drops out.
Sitting at my parents', back from the cemetary
Because today was the day my grandfather got buried.
He died in his sleep of a heart attack,
It's at this inappropriate time I see that I look good in black.
It suits me well, matches my mood, makes me look thin, reflects my attitude.
Scotty found another job, LJ checked herself in, Pete's playing the bachelor game.
But for me it's still bad, life makes me so sad, everything's still the same.
So I'll sit here in black in this dimly lit room, wastin' on a cloudy afternoon.
And when you think things are bad, the bottom drops out.
Things can only get better from here, then the bottom drops out.
My better half's here but I'm all by myself, I sit and seethe, she sits and stares.
My guardian angel has left me in Hell, why can't I talk to this person I know really cares?
I love her so much but I'm too scared to think
So I go to the kitchen to fix me a drink.
The orange juice reminds me of a happy little boy,
The one whose biggest fear was losing his favorite toy.
He'd cry if he saw me, his ambitions all gone.
His life's now one big night without a hint of dawn.
And when you think things are bad, the bottom drops out.
Things can only get better from here, then the bottom drops out.
Am I gonna make it to sixty? Am I gonna see forty?
Stress is fatal.
Do I wanna make it to sixty? Will I even wanna see forty?
Life is fatal.
And when you think things are bad, the bottom drops out.
Things can only get better from here, then the bottom drops out.
Even if I knew where to look, there's no way out.
I'm trapped in a life full of fear and self-doubt.
Don't get too close - the real me is too scared to speak.
The one you know is bold and smart and turns the other cheek.
One disaster begets another, I sit here perplexed.
Both of me agree when we wonder what next
Will ruin our day, week, month, or year,
From a tiny paper cut to hitting a deer.
And when you think things are bad, the bottom drops out.
Things can only get better from here, then the bottom drops out.
And when you think things are bad, the bottom drops out.
Things can only get better from here, then the bottom drops out.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Election 2008
Fellow Americans -
CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, the BBC, Wikipedia's main page, even Fox News have all announced Barack Obama as the projected winner of the 2008 Presidential election.
So, with that, let me just go ahead and get that little bit of pride out of my system:
BARACK OBAMA, MOTHERFUCKER! Hey McCain, how do you like
THESE nuts?
Palin - see you in the funny papers!
Bush - your days are numbered, bitch!
Cheney - "Your pacemaker's a fake 'cause you haven't got a heart" - Eric Idle / Hey Dick, why don't you come over? I'll cook you a microwave dinner.
Ted Stevens - see you in jail, gramps!
Romney - see your slimy ass in 2012...
Bill Clinton - don't even pretend for a minute you helped this man get elected. This primary season you reduced yourself to a joke and a half.
Hillary Clinton - you all but called for someone to pop him once Geraldine Ferraro had her little racist gaffe in March, which you quickly buried by unleashing Jeremiah Wright on the United States public. Go back to the Senate where you will languish for another eight years, at which point you will be too old to pursue the highest office in the land. You LOSE! Good DAY, Madam Senator!
I haven't said this...I don't think ever...but God Bless America.
And God Bless us, Everyone!
Thank you, Tiny Tim!
Alex
CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, the BBC, Wikipedia's main page, even Fox News have all announced Barack Obama as the projected winner of the 2008 Presidential election.
So, with that, let me just go ahead and get that little bit of pride out of my system:
BARACK OBAMA, MOTHERFUCKER! Hey McCain, how do you like
THESE nuts?
Palin - see you in the funny papers!
Bush - your days are numbered, bitch!
Cheney - "Your pacemaker's a fake 'cause you haven't got a heart" - Eric Idle / Hey Dick, why don't you come over? I'll cook you a microwave dinner.
Ted Stevens - see you in jail, gramps!
Romney - see your slimy ass in 2012...
Bill Clinton - don't even pretend for a minute you helped this man get elected. This primary season you reduced yourself to a joke and a half.
Hillary Clinton - you all but called for someone to pop him once Geraldine Ferraro had her little racist gaffe in March, which you quickly buried by unleashing Jeremiah Wright on the United States public. Go back to the Senate where you will languish for another eight years, at which point you will be too old to pursue the highest office in the land. You LOSE! Good DAY, Madam Senator!
I haven't said this...I don't think ever...but God Bless America.
And God Bless us, Everyone!
Thank you, Tiny Tim!
Alex
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Follow-Up
I posted Jimmy Carl Black roughly twelve hours ago singing "Lonesome Cowboy Burt" in 200 Motels.
It pains me to report that Jimmy passed away Halloween night of cancer. He had been suffering from leukemia since 2001. It eventually spread to his lungs.
Jimmy Carl Black with Frank Zappa's band in 1980, doing "Harder Than Your Husband" in his Lonesome Cowboy Burt voice.
Use this link if the embedded video doesn't work.
For me, it's somewhat of a personal loss, not just because I met him or that he was also a drummer, but because the first Zappa album I heard, We're Only In It For The Money, opened with a disorienting amount of noise and creepy whispering. Then once it ended, I hear "Hi boys 'n girls, I'm Jimmy Carl Black 'n I'm the Indian of the group!"
That was around 8 years ago that I first heard it. From that point on I was hooked to the music of Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention.
YouTube link.
Alex
It pains me to report that Jimmy passed away Halloween night of cancer. He had been suffering from leukemia since 2001. It eventually spread to his lungs.
Jimmy Carl Black with Frank Zappa's band in 1980, doing "Harder Than Your Husband" in his Lonesome Cowboy Burt voice.
Use this link if the embedded video doesn't work.
For me, it's somewhat of a personal loss, not just because I met him or that he was also a drummer, but because the first Zappa album I heard, We're Only In It For The Money, opened with a disorienting amount of noise and creepy whispering. Then once it ended, I hear "Hi boys 'n girls, I'm Jimmy Carl Black 'n I'm the Indian of the group!"
That was around 8 years ago that I first heard it. From that point on I was hooked to the music of Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention.
YouTube link.
Alex
100 Entries...Damn, I'm Really Wasting Other People's Time
I remember the last few times I've logged in and I'll see that I've made 94 posts, 95, 97...and thinking just how in the Hell I'll be able to make my 100th entry count.
How about with a wedding?
Friday was a bustling, busy day. I got my hair trimmed - NOT CUT - but trimmed. And it looked just fine. I swung by my apartment to get an outfit to wear for the rehearsal while Shelley took her time getting ready.
The entire ride to Seymour I was prepping Shelley about how my grandparents are and how they might or might not be open to her, etc. When we got home, Eric Lindstrom (I know, talk about confusing - THREE Erics) was helping Maddie get her stuff out of the house. He and Dad seemed to get along well. As soon as we got them ready and they were on their way, Shelley and I ate a light lunch with Mom, Dad, and Nick.
I asked if they had heard from Gramma and Papa, and if they knew how soon they would be here. Mom said they didn't know, and Dad jokingly said, "Thanks to you, they're probably pulling in to the driveway right now!"
And they were. Weird.
One thing I had forgotten was the fact that Shelley's grandparents live five minutes away from her parents in Dallas. She has told me many stories about how they're an old bickering couple and more often than not she sits between them in the back seat on the way to dinner. I also forgot that with Shelley's bad hearing she has had 21 years of nodding and smiling when she can't understand somebody, and that she also possesses the innate ability to "turn off" her hearing. She might hear you, but she isn't listening.
As a result, Shelley knocked it out of the park with Gramma and Papa. Shelley and Gramma share a mutual love of dark chocolate and sweets, while Papa's long-winded stories were perfect for Shelley's nodding and smiling. Since she is used to having elderly relatives who talk circles around her, it just clicked. They told me that they really liked her. Papa pinched her cheeks.
I have told her for at least two and a half years now that meeting my grandparents is kind of like the ultimate endurance test for whoever any of us are courting. It's really a milestone in a relationship. For Eric and Maddie it was during Thanksgiving 2005, less than a month after they officially started dating. Other girlfriends, mine, Eric's, Nick's were all told "You haven't really seen it all until you've met Gramma and Papa."
She hasn't dumped me yet...maybe she's waiting for the right time to say it.
Not only did everything go swimmingly with Shelley and the grandparents, they were on their best behavior. As soon as all the Kodak moments for the wedding were over and the dancing started, they were ready to call it a night. Since they had plans to visit Dad's brother Phil (who Dad has not spoken to for 9 years) on Sunday, them leaving the reception meant that was it for them for the weekend. It was just the right amount of face time that no one got on anyone else's nerves, no one said anything uncouth, and no one got pissed off.
The rehearsal was fun. Maddie and Kelley's family are the kind of people that make you feel like you're part of the family almost right away.
Perhaps I should give you a little bit of autobiographical poop:
Maddie's sister Kelley and I have been friends since middle school. We always talked on MSN Messenger (do any of you still use that? I'm exclusively an AIM person, though it's been months since I've used it...) and even went on a date. It came and went, we decided not to be a couple, and remained friends after that. On top of hanging out with Kelley at lunch, every year the high school band had to sell crap (cheese, sausage, microwavable meals) for no real reason at all I would always swing by the Lindstrom residence. The first two years it was sort of enforced (since I wasn't driving) that I did the door-to-door thing. My last two years of high school I stopped giving a shit about most things, but if I ever made one sale (besides Mom taking my sales forms to work and getting orders from Aunt Nancy and Gramma) it was Maddie and Kelley's mother Holly.
Three years ago at Oktoberfest, really on a whim more than anything else, we made an attempt to get Maddie together with Eric. They had apparently talked over MySpace or something, both thought the other was cute, so we decided to see what would happen. Call it basic anthropology. Weeks later, they were dating. Within a month, they were talking nightly on the phone. When Holly, Eric, and Kelley moved from Seymour to Chicago in the fall of 2006, Maddie moved in with us since she had both a job and classes.
As a result, we've all gotten to know Maddie really well. I really like her a lot, she's very intelligent, friendly, and has a great sense of humor.
Anyway, the rehearsal/rehearsal dinner was like a reunion of sorts for me and Gill (who was the third groomsman along with me and Nick, and dated Kelley for about two and a half years) to see the Lindstrom family.
And the wedding itself on Saturday was beautiful. I don't know what else to say. As Eric's best man I had to give a speech. It had floated around in my mind for about a month. The night before the wedding, I was up late checking email, and as is my custom when in Seymour, I checked the listings to see what (if anything) good was on TCM. I see The World's Greatest Sinner (1962), followed by 200 Motels.
Holy shit! The first film features a score by Frank Zappa, while the second one is a movie written and directed by Zappa featuring The Mothers of Invention:
(It still barely registers that I met Jimmy Carl Black, the man you see singing "Lonesome Cowboy Burt".)
Click this link if the embedded video doesn't work.
I called on of my Zappa buddies, and we both noted the motif later heard in "Holiday In Berlin, Full-Blown" in the score to The World's Greatest Sinner. The film itself sucked, but seeing 200 Motels in all its R-rated glory during the FCC watershed hours made up for it.
Anyway, I was about to doze off, when my best man speech just came to me. It was better than any of the version I had in my head, and I realized if I didn't write it down now it would be gone forever. I went to bed at sunrise and woke up at 1 in the afternoon. All of Saturday I went with no coffee, yet I was able to stay up until 4 or 5 in the morning. My speech was very well-received.
After the reception, Kelley, Shelley (the two ladies bonded quite well, by the way), Gill, Johnson, Nick, Kelley and Maddie's brother in law Tom, and I decorated Eric's car with the standard "JUST MARRIED!" fare, complete with hearts...and "$10,000 O.B.O." Don't know who did that...*devilish grin*. Their honeymoon was Myrtle Beach, which as I learned in the following days was just as chilly as it was here. Oh, well, I'm sure they had fun just the same.
Sunday morning, Dad, Mom, Nick, Shelley, and I grabbed brunch at Cracker Barrel with mom's sister in law Susan and her 40-something daughter Ami. Ami had some past experience as a wedding planner, thus she and Susan were around the whole weekend.
It's really hard for me to say what the "best" part of the weekend was, because each moment was perfect in its own way for different reasons: me and Eric alone in the Sunday school room where we'd changed clothes immediately before the wedding, slow dancing with Shelley, complimenting the DJ on a job well done (a conversation which eventually turned into "So you said you could start in January?" and "Let's talk pay..."), Papa telling the story of his brother Angelo dying in World War II (a fact I'd always known, but never the full story), the high school reunion aspect of me being with Gill, Johnson, and Kelley all at the same time (something that hadn't happened since before Gill and Kelley broke up), etc.
But if I had to pick an actual favorite moment for the weekend, it was when the topic of mine and Shelley's future got brought up. We'd had a few relatives of mine asking when we would be getting married, and we both agreed on the blanket answer of "Well, it's been talked about..."
I'll just tell you guys what I told Mom and Dad. Some of you may already know this in some capacity or another:
Shelley has said she would go wherever I went for graduate school. Since Shelley's parents don't know I'm still in their daughter's life (at least beyond friendship) let alone the fact that the proverbial shit will hit the proverbial fan once they know we're together, it's pretty much crucial we follow some basic rules to keep my parents pleased. One is that we wouldn't live together without being married.
This isn't to diminish marriage. Quite to the contrary, in fact. When we got back together, we decided that if things didn't seem to be working out to call it quits immediately. We also knew that when we got back together it would be for good.
Mom and Dad's thoughts on this: they couldn't be happier. We'll bring you more on this story as it develops.
My graduate school search is narrowed down to five, possibly six schools:
+ Bowling Green State University
+ University of Washington (Seattle)
+ University of Massachusetts (Boston)
+ City University of New York
+ The College Of William & Mary (Williamsburg, Virginia)
+ University of Texas, Austin
My ethnomusicology professor taught at BGSU for a year, and knows members of the faculty in BGSU's popular culture department. He gave me a few names to get in touch with. It's rapidly becoming my number one choice. A visit is in the works.
I apologize for the delay in publishing this post. Everything except the graduate school update (which happened Thursday) was ready by Tuesday of this past week. There's something else going on that I don't feel completely comfortable discussing in a public forum. It's a bit of a buzzkill, and one I didn't see coming. If you're interested in hearing about it, let me know (m@...).
Alex
How about with a wedding?
Friday was a bustling, busy day. I got my hair trimmed - NOT CUT - but trimmed. And it looked just fine. I swung by my apartment to get an outfit to wear for the rehearsal while Shelley took her time getting ready.
The entire ride to Seymour I was prepping Shelley about how my grandparents are and how they might or might not be open to her, etc. When we got home, Eric Lindstrom (I know, talk about confusing - THREE Erics) was helping Maddie get her stuff out of the house. He and Dad seemed to get along well. As soon as we got them ready and they were on their way, Shelley and I ate a light lunch with Mom, Dad, and Nick.
I asked if they had heard from Gramma and Papa, and if they knew how soon they would be here. Mom said they didn't know, and Dad jokingly said, "Thanks to you, they're probably pulling in to the driveway right now!"
And they were. Weird.
One thing I had forgotten was the fact that Shelley's grandparents live five minutes away from her parents in Dallas. She has told me many stories about how they're an old bickering couple and more often than not she sits between them in the back seat on the way to dinner. I also forgot that with Shelley's bad hearing she has had 21 years of nodding and smiling when she can't understand somebody, and that she also possesses the innate ability to "turn off" her hearing. She might hear you, but she isn't listening.
As a result, Shelley knocked it out of the park with Gramma and Papa. Shelley and Gramma share a mutual love of dark chocolate and sweets, while Papa's long-winded stories were perfect for Shelley's nodding and smiling. Since she is used to having elderly relatives who talk circles around her, it just clicked. They told me that they really liked her. Papa pinched her cheeks.
I have told her for at least two and a half years now that meeting my grandparents is kind of like the ultimate endurance test for whoever any of us are courting. It's really a milestone in a relationship. For Eric and Maddie it was during Thanksgiving 2005, less than a month after they officially started dating. Other girlfriends, mine, Eric's, Nick's were all told "You haven't really seen it all until you've met Gramma and Papa."
She hasn't dumped me yet...maybe she's waiting for the right time to say it.
Not only did everything go swimmingly with Shelley and the grandparents, they were on their best behavior. As soon as all the Kodak moments for the wedding were over and the dancing started, they were ready to call it a night. Since they had plans to visit Dad's brother Phil (who Dad has not spoken to for 9 years) on Sunday, them leaving the reception meant that was it for them for the weekend. It was just the right amount of face time that no one got on anyone else's nerves, no one said anything uncouth, and no one got pissed off.
The rehearsal was fun. Maddie and Kelley's family are the kind of people that make you feel like you're part of the family almost right away.
Perhaps I should give you a little bit of autobiographical poop:
Maddie's sister Kelley and I have been friends since middle school. We always talked on MSN Messenger (do any of you still use that? I'm exclusively an AIM person, though it's been months since I've used it...) and even went on a date. It came and went, we decided not to be a couple, and remained friends after that. On top of hanging out with Kelley at lunch, every year the high school band had to sell crap (cheese, sausage, microwavable meals) for no real reason at all I would always swing by the Lindstrom residence. The first two years it was sort of enforced (since I wasn't driving) that I did the door-to-door thing. My last two years of high school I stopped giving a shit about most things, but if I ever made one sale (besides Mom taking my sales forms to work and getting orders from Aunt Nancy and Gramma) it was Maddie and Kelley's mother Holly.
Three years ago at Oktoberfest, really on a whim more than anything else, we made an attempt to get Maddie together with Eric. They had apparently talked over MySpace or something, both thought the other was cute, so we decided to see what would happen. Call it basic anthropology. Weeks later, they were dating. Within a month, they were talking nightly on the phone. When Holly, Eric, and Kelley moved from Seymour to Chicago in the fall of 2006, Maddie moved in with us since she had both a job and classes.
As a result, we've all gotten to know Maddie really well. I really like her a lot, she's very intelligent, friendly, and has a great sense of humor.
Anyway, the rehearsal/rehearsal dinner was like a reunion of sorts for me and Gill (who was the third groomsman along with me and Nick, and dated Kelley for about two and a half years) to see the Lindstrom family.
And the wedding itself on Saturday was beautiful. I don't know what else to say. As Eric's best man I had to give a speech. It had floated around in my mind for about a month. The night before the wedding, I was up late checking email, and as is my custom when in Seymour, I checked the listings to see what (if anything) good was on TCM. I see The World's Greatest Sinner (1962), followed by 200 Motels.
Holy shit! The first film features a score by Frank Zappa, while the second one is a movie written and directed by Zappa featuring The Mothers of Invention:
(It still barely registers that I met Jimmy Carl Black, the man you see singing "Lonesome Cowboy Burt".)
Click this link if the embedded video doesn't work.
I called on of my Zappa buddies, and we both noted the motif later heard in "Holiday In Berlin, Full-Blown" in the score to The World's Greatest Sinner. The film itself sucked, but seeing 200 Motels in all its R-rated glory during the FCC watershed hours made up for it.
Anyway, I was about to doze off, when my best man speech just came to me. It was better than any of the version I had in my head, and I realized if I didn't write it down now it would be gone forever. I went to bed at sunrise and woke up at 1 in the afternoon. All of Saturday I went with no coffee, yet I was able to stay up until 4 or 5 in the morning. My speech was very well-received.
After the reception, Kelley, Shelley (the two ladies bonded quite well, by the way), Gill, Johnson, Nick, Kelley and Maddie's brother in law Tom, and I decorated Eric's car with the standard "JUST MARRIED!" fare, complete with hearts...and "$10,000 O.B.O." Don't know who did that...*devilish grin*. Their honeymoon was Myrtle Beach, which as I learned in the following days was just as chilly as it was here. Oh, well, I'm sure they had fun just the same.
Sunday morning, Dad, Mom, Nick, Shelley, and I grabbed brunch at Cracker Barrel with mom's sister in law Susan and her 40-something daughter Ami. Ami had some past experience as a wedding planner, thus she and Susan were around the whole weekend.
It's really hard for me to say what the "best" part of the weekend was, because each moment was perfect in its own way for different reasons: me and Eric alone in the Sunday school room where we'd changed clothes immediately before the wedding, slow dancing with Shelley, complimenting the DJ on a job well done (a conversation which eventually turned into "So you said you could start in January?" and "Let's talk pay..."), Papa telling the story of his brother Angelo dying in World War II (a fact I'd always known, but never the full story), the high school reunion aspect of me being with Gill, Johnson, and Kelley all at the same time (something that hadn't happened since before Gill and Kelley broke up), etc.
But if I had to pick an actual favorite moment for the weekend, it was when the topic of mine and Shelley's future got brought up. We'd had a few relatives of mine asking when we would be getting married, and we both agreed on the blanket answer of "Well, it's been talked about..."
I'll just tell you guys what I told Mom and Dad. Some of you may already know this in some capacity or another:
Shelley has said she would go wherever I went for graduate school. Since Shelley's parents don't know I'm still in their daughter's life (at least beyond friendship) let alone the fact that the proverbial shit will hit the proverbial fan once they know we're together, it's pretty much crucial we follow some basic rules to keep my parents pleased. One is that we wouldn't live together without being married.
This isn't to diminish marriage. Quite to the contrary, in fact. When we got back together, we decided that if things didn't seem to be working out to call it quits immediately. We also knew that when we got back together it would be for good.
Mom and Dad's thoughts on this: they couldn't be happier. We'll bring you more on this story as it develops.
My graduate school search is narrowed down to five, possibly six schools:
+ Bowling Green State University
+ University of Washington (Seattle)
+ University of Massachusetts (Boston)
+ City University of New York
+ The College Of William & Mary (Williamsburg, Virginia)
+ University of Texas, Austin
My ethnomusicology professor taught at BGSU for a year, and knows members of the faculty in BGSU's popular culture department. He gave me a few names to get in touch with. It's rapidly becoming my number one choice. A visit is in the works.
I apologize for the delay in publishing this post. Everything except the graduate school update (which happened Thursday) was ready by Tuesday of this past week. There's something else going on that I don't feel completely comfortable discussing in a public forum. It's a bit of a buzzkill, and one I didn't see coming. If you're interested in hearing about it, let me know (m@...).
Alex
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Out Of The Blue And Into The Black
For my history class we had to write an analysis of any song and discuss its message and significance. Writing was a breeze, it was narrowing it down to one song and one song only that was a pain in the ass!
I chose "My, My, Hey, Hey (Out Of The Blue)" and "Hey, Hey, My, My (Into The Black)" by Neil Young. This decision was reached on two factors:
1.) I wanted to post it up here since you guys had literally NOTHING to say about these songs when I posted them up here a month or so ago.
2.) The class specifically asked for an American musician. While Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart, Alice Cooper, The Residents, Iggy Pop, The MC5, and Jimi Hendrix are all American musicians I love and admire, I picked Neil because he's Canadian. Consider it a minor act of defiance, one that will most likely go unnoticed.
"My, My, Hey, Hey (Out Of The Blue)"
If the embedded video doesn't work, simply follow this link.
"Hey, Hey, My, My (Into The Black)"
If the embedded video doesn't work, simply follow this link.
The late 1970’s was a bleak time for rock and roll. The old generation was being blown off as “dinosaurs” by the punk movement. One established musician of the previous generation, Neil Young, had hit a rough patch artistically. It was on his 1979 album Rust Never Sleeps that he re-established himself as a force to be reckoned with in the rock world. His reemergence as a dignitary in rock and roll was heralded by the album’s opening and closing tracks, “My, My, Hey, Hey (Out Of The Blue)” and “Hey, Hey, My, My (Into The Black)”. In their mostly identical lyrics, Young addresses the idea of fame, the punk movement, and the death of Elvis Presley.
Neil Young released American Stars ‘N Bars in 1977, with only half of it having been recorded that year; the rest of it dated back several years. His next album, Comes A Time, was almost completely folk/country. Only two songs boasted his backing band Crazy Horse. He immediately followed this up with a tour where one half of the show was just Neil on stage doing acoustic numbers and the other half was Neil with Crazy Horse backing him. It was on this tour that he debuted “Out Of The Blue” and “Into The Black.”
Both versions of the song represent the two distinct sides of Neil Young: “Out Of The Blue” is a contemplative acoustic number in the same vein as his previous hits “The Needle And The Damage Done” and “Old Man,” both from his 1972 album Harvest. “Into The Black”, by contrast, is a hard-rocking number with noisy, minimalist guitar solos akin to “Cinnamon Girl” off Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (1969) or “Southern Man” from 1970’s After The Gold Rush. My personal preference rests with the latter version, though it is worth comparing the two for their slight differences lyrically.
The acoustic rendition features a more meek vocal performance, with the opening line “My, my, hey, hey/Rock and roll is here to stay” sounding more like a dose of self-assurance. He immediately follows this up by singing a now immortal line: “It’s better to burn out/Than to fade away.” This attitude embodies rock music: live fast, die young, and leave a pretty corpse. Neil was no stranger to loss; Crazy Horse’s original guitarist Danny Whitten died of a heroin overdose in 1972 the same night Young fired him. When he reiterates the line later on in the song, the second line of the couplet is instead “Than to turn to rust.” This connotes the idea that it is better for an artist to simply cease working than to grow stale and meaningless.
The electric version is led in by a heavily distorted guitar, at times sounding almost atonal. Neil’s singing is more passionate, as well. The first verse reads: “Hey, hey, my, my/Rock and roll can never die,” a more profound declaration than in its sister rendition. The first and second verse is separated by a simple but strong guitar solo. “Out of the blue/And into the black/You pay for this/But they give you that,” Neil sings. This can be interpreted as his view on the recording industry, where artists are discovered out of the blue – as nobodies – before being catapulted into stardom. “Into the black” can suggest both profits for the record companies (where being “in the red” implies financial losses) and a more cynical idea of the “black” being a void, where artists go once they are considered past their prime.
For Young, several years had passed since Harvest, which was a tremendous success. Shaken by Whitten’s death and the subsequent overdose of one of his roadies, Young approached a darker lyrical style. His career may have seemed to be in a void of sorts. The next couplet, “And once you’re gone/You can’t come back/When you’re out of the blue/And into the black,” is suggestive of Young’s inability to maintain the success that he had obtained in 1972. Once he had drifted out of the mainstream, he was placed on the back-burner while other trends and names came and went. There is also the obvious connection with death associated with those lines as well. The guitar solo after this verse comes immediately. In playing higher notes to the point that they almost shriek, Neil’s solo sounds like wails of sorrow.
In the third verse of both versions, Neil sings that “The King [Elvis] is gone/But he’s not forgotten,” following it up in the acoustic version by singing “This is the story of Johnny Rotten.” As the leader of The Sex Pistols, a band who by the time Rust Never Sleeps was released had completely self-destructed, Johnny Rotten moved on to form his own group, Public Image Limited. In doing so, he dropped his given moniker and chose to go by his real name, John Lydon. Neil is suggesting that Johnny Rotten and all he represented (rebellion, anarchy) are no more, but his legacy is secured. On the electric version it is left open-ended; Young asks, “Is this the story of Johnny Rotten?” The third verse of the acoustic version ends with the line “It’s better to burn out/Than it is to rust,” though the electric version is again more celebratory: “It’s better to burn out/Cos rust never sleeps.” The line lending itself to the album’s title was actually taken from a can of Rustoleum, though in the song’s context it is a message: The Sex Pistols may have “burned out,” so to speak, but Neil is still around.
Musically, the song was a major influence on musicians, earning Neil Young the nickname “The Godfather of Grunge.” Kurt Cobain used the line “It’s better to burn out/Than to fade away” in his suicide note. The song revitalized Young’s career, proving him to be more than just a rusty old dinosaur out in the stomping grounds with other musicians of his generation. Culturally, the song helped to revive rock and roll in a time where disco, metal, and pop dominated the market. It is rare for a song to carry out its own message, but for a song declaring “Rock and roll can never die” to pass along the musical torch to a new generation is nothing less than a rare, perfect, and momentous example.
Let me know what you thought/think.
Alex
I chose "My, My, Hey, Hey (Out Of The Blue)" and "Hey, Hey, My, My (Into The Black)" by Neil Young. This decision was reached on two factors:
1.) I wanted to post it up here since you guys had literally NOTHING to say about these songs when I posted them up here a month or so ago.
2.) The class specifically asked for an American musician. While Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart, Alice Cooper, The Residents, Iggy Pop, The MC5, and Jimi Hendrix are all American musicians I love and admire, I picked Neil because he's Canadian. Consider it a minor act of defiance, one that will most likely go unnoticed.
"My, My, Hey, Hey (Out Of The Blue)"
If the embedded video doesn't work, simply follow this link.
"Hey, Hey, My, My (Into The Black)"
If the embedded video doesn't work, simply follow this link.
The late 1970’s was a bleak time for rock and roll. The old generation was being blown off as “dinosaurs” by the punk movement. One established musician of the previous generation, Neil Young, had hit a rough patch artistically. It was on his 1979 album Rust Never Sleeps that he re-established himself as a force to be reckoned with in the rock world. His reemergence as a dignitary in rock and roll was heralded by the album’s opening and closing tracks, “My, My, Hey, Hey (Out Of The Blue)” and “Hey, Hey, My, My (Into The Black)”. In their mostly identical lyrics, Young addresses the idea of fame, the punk movement, and the death of Elvis Presley.
Neil Young released American Stars ‘N Bars in 1977, with only half of it having been recorded that year; the rest of it dated back several years. His next album, Comes A Time, was almost completely folk/country. Only two songs boasted his backing band Crazy Horse. He immediately followed this up with a tour where one half of the show was just Neil on stage doing acoustic numbers and the other half was Neil with Crazy Horse backing him. It was on this tour that he debuted “Out Of The Blue” and “Into The Black.”
Both versions of the song represent the two distinct sides of Neil Young: “Out Of The Blue” is a contemplative acoustic number in the same vein as his previous hits “The Needle And The Damage Done” and “Old Man,” both from his 1972 album Harvest. “Into The Black”, by contrast, is a hard-rocking number with noisy, minimalist guitar solos akin to “Cinnamon Girl” off Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (1969) or “Southern Man” from 1970’s After The Gold Rush. My personal preference rests with the latter version, though it is worth comparing the two for their slight differences lyrically.
The acoustic rendition features a more meek vocal performance, with the opening line “My, my, hey, hey/Rock and roll is here to stay” sounding more like a dose of self-assurance. He immediately follows this up by singing a now immortal line: “It’s better to burn out/Than to fade away.” This attitude embodies rock music: live fast, die young, and leave a pretty corpse. Neil was no stranger to loss; Crazy Horse’s original guitarist Danny Whitten died of a heroin overdose in 1972 the same night Young fired him. When he reiterates the line later on in the song, the second line of the couplet is instead “Than to turn to rust.” This connotes the idea that it is better for an artist to simply cease working than to grow stale and meaningless.
The electric version is led in by a heavily distorted guitar, at times sounding almost atonal. Neil’s singing is more passionate, as well. The first verse reads: “Hey, hey, my, my/Rock and roll can never die,” a more profound declaration than in its sister rendition. The first and second verse is separated by a simple but strong guitar solo. “Out of the blue/And into the black/You pay for this/But they give you that,” Neil sings. This can be interpreted as his view on the recording industry, where artists are discovered out of the blue – as nobodies – before being catapulted into stardom. “Into the black” can suggest both profits for the record companies (where being “in the red” implies financial losses) and a more cynical idea of the “black” being a void, where artists go once they are considered past their prime.
For Young, several years had passed since Harvest, which was a tremendous success. Shaken by Whitten’s death and the subsequent overdose of one of his roadies, Young approached a darker lyrical style. His career may have seemed to be in a void of sorts. The next couplet, “And once you’re gone/You can’t come back/When you’re out of the blue/And into the black,” is suggestive of Young’s inability to maintain the success that he had obtained in 1972. Once he had drifted out of the mainstream, he was placed on the back-burner while other trends and names came and went. There is also the obvious connection with death associated with those lines as well. The guitar solo after this verse comes immediately. In playing higher notes to the point that they almost shriek, Neil’s solo sounds like wails of sorrow.
In the third verse of both versions, Neil sings that “The King [Elvis] is gone/But he’s not forgotten,” following it up in the acoustic version by singing “This is the story of Johnny Rotten.” As the leader of The Sex Pistols, a band who by the time Rust Never Sleeps was released had completely self-destructed, Johnny Rotten moved on to form his own group, Public Image Limited. In doing so, he dropped his given moniker and chose to go by his real name, John Lydon. Neil is suggesting that Johnny Rotten and all he represented (rebellion, anarchy) are no more, but his legacy is secured. On the electric version it is left open-ended; Young asks, “Is this the story of Johnny Rotten?” The third verse of the acoustic version ends with the line “It’s better to burn out/Than it is to rust,” though the electric version is again more celebratory: “It’s better to burn out/Cos rust never sleeps.” The line lending itself to the album’s title was actually taken from a can of Rustoleum, though in the song’s context it is a message: The Sex Pistols may have “burned out,” so to speak, but Neil is still around.
Musically, the song was a major influence on musicians, earning Neil Young the nickname “The Godfather of Grunge.” Kurt Cobain used the line “It’s better to burn out/Than to fade away” in his suicide note. The song revitalized Young’s career, proving him to be more than just a rusty old dinosaur out in the stomping grounds with other musicians of his generation. Culturally, the song helped to revive rock and roll in a time where disco, metal, and pop dominated the market. It is rare for a song to carry out its own message, but for a song declaring “Rock and roll can never die” to pass along the musical torch to a new generation is nothing less than a rare, perfect, and momentous example.
Let me know what you thought/think.
Alex
Saturday, October 18, 2008
"I wish I had a pair of bongos...BONGO FURY!"
I'm sitting here listening to early Pink Floyd (I favor anything from before Dark Side Of The Moon. After that...meh...), and I truly believe that Syd Barrett's story is a tragedy.
Pink Floyd - Arnold Layne
(Let me know what you think!)
Shelley is helping make my Halloween costume. I refuse to divulge, you'll just have to be surprised.
A bachelor party is in its early stages of development for Eric. I fear I may have waited too long before I gave it thought, but it's not like I had a big celebration in mind with a Ferris wheel and fireworks. It will probably just be a bunch of us dudes going out for a beer (in Nick's 19-year-old case, a root beer). I'm so glad Eric didn't want some epic stripper-related blowout.
Then again, if I had a brother like that I wouldn't be attending the wedding, let alone standing as his best man.
It's really exciting. Every other girl Eric dated for the most part was a hosebeast of one brand or another. Like me, he has some interesting exes. One is married to a guy twice her age with two kids. Another turned out to have nothing really in common with him at all, ditching him for a guy who was into Nascar, trucks, and country music. I believe Dan Crall (Eric's college friend who introduced me to Masonna, Merzbow, David Lynch, and John Waters - in other words, you have him to blame!) referred to that one as a "stereotypical American bitch."
For the first time ever, with Maddie I can say I'm happy for Eric. I know I've said it before, but it really will change things. Mom has kicked around the idea of leaving Seymour once Nick was either in college or finished with college. Now that he's in college, I wonder if it will really happen. I say this because Eric and Maddie will at least be in Seymour for a few years since they've bought a house.
It will be a lot easier for Mom and Dad to move since Mom turned in her resignation notice at the nursing home on Monday. Not for two weeks. Not even for one. It was effective Friday. She had been looking at a job as head nurse at the Jackson County Health Clinic downtown (just a few blocks from the house), interview, job shadow and all. Her job shadow was scheduled for Monday, in fact.
She called to tell me how happy she was that she'd broken her issue into two parts: 1. quitting the nursing home position, and 2. keeping her options open regarding the job downtown. I had told her before Oktoberfest weekend even if the Health Clinic job is a bum gig she might as well have a crappy job that's three blocks away versus a half-hour drive one way.
It gets better: I got a call later Monday. She had turned down the job downtown as well. As I've learned, she has a tendency to do this every once in a while - quit and free fall until another job lands in her lap. When she quit the hospital in 2000, she took classes to get her real estate license, only to ditch it (after selling one or two houses) later that year to work at a doctor's office.
I hate that she was so proud of her tackling her issue, but I really hate that she tried to pass this off to me as something I should do if I ever encountered a dilemma. I'm well aware of deadlines and potential crises looming ahead. And I know to keep the graduate school applications in one pile and the research material for my Kinks project in another one. They are unrelated. But quitting a job is a two-part process, not two separate occasions: find a "better" job, quit your present one.
A dumb thing to do.
After the Zappa test on Tuesday, Andy and I had a bitch session of sorts. All this stuff with Mom was on my mind (nobody's going to go hungry, it's just I know, I KNOW until she finds another job she is going to grumble about expenses. And it's not like grad school applications are free. He who asks for money shall hear the bitching.), but Andy is having tendon problems in his left arm. For a guitarist, this is never good. He's had to cancel his show in December and had his surgery been on a Tuesday or a Thursday - you know how doctors are, your elbow can wait if it's good weather for golf - he would have needed me to cover Zappa for him.
I hate that his loss would have been my gain in a way, but his surgery has been scheduled for a Friday. Crisis averted.
Today I picked up a whopping four albums from Landlocked Music - I've promised myself a reward once every third payday:
Neil Young - Harvest & On The Beach
Alice Cooper - Pretties For You & Easy Action (his/their - the band was also called Alice Cooper until 1975 - first and second album, which were put out on Frank Zappa's Straight Records)
Alice Cooper - Refrigerator Heaven
David Briggs, who produced Easy Action to the band's dismay, also did all of Neil Young's albums aside from Harvest until his death in 1995, and did a damn good job. Small world...
I hate working on weekends, Shelley keeps reminding me it's extra income...but I'd like to see her deal with this region's finest batch of assholes for 5-8 hours on a Saturday or an entire open-to-close shift on a Sunday, where it seems EVERY nutjob has been let out of their little padded room and they have all congregated at the mall.
We'll see. I really like the idea of working at least through the Holidays. Pete has asked me how many hours I'd like...I told him as much as he needed me. I don't really want to twiddle my thumbs for the duration of winter break, which will run from December 20th to January 10th. For some reasons, that 22-day stretch seems so much longer than ever. Longer than that winter break where Shelley and I fell in love back around 2005/2006 - when I had my tonsils removed. Longer than my first Christmas as a non-Christian in 2006 and anticipated Shelley telling her parents off.
Maybe it's because I'll be in Bloomington. Maybe it's because Shelley won't be here. I get her place all to myself so I can watch Phyllis. This is a mixed blessing: yes, I won't be at my actual apartment and yes, it is nice every now and again to have some time/space to myself, but I have no idea how busy I'll be at Spencer's, which in turn will affect how busy my social life will be during break.
I'm hungry, I have work in 13 hours, and I've run out of things to talk about.
Alex
Pink Floyd - Arnold Layne
(Let me know what you think!)
Shelley is helping make my Halloween costume. I refuse to divulge, you'll just have to be surprised.
A bachelor party is in its early stages of development for Eric. I fear I may have waited too long before I gave it thought, but it's not like I had a big celebration in mind with a Ferris wheel and fireworks. It will probably just be a bunch of us dudes going out for a beer (in Nick's 19-year-old case, a root beer). I'm so glad Eric didn't want some epic stripper-related blowout.
Then again, if I had a brother like that I wouldn't be attending the wedding, let alone standing as his best man.
It's really exciting. Every other girl Eric dated for the most part was a hosebeast of one brand or another. Like me, he has some interesting exes. One is married to a guy twice her age with two kids. Another turned out to have nothing really in common with him at all, ditching him for a guy who was into Nascar, trucks, and country music. I believe Dan Crall (Eric's college friend who introduced me to Masonna, Merzbow, David Lynch, and John Waters - in other words, you have him to blame!) referred to that one as a "stereotypical American bitch."
For the first time ever, with Maddie I can say I'm happy for Eric. I know I've said it before, but it really will change things. Mom has kicked around the idea of leaving Seymour once Nick was either in college or finished with college. Now that he's in college, I wonder if it will really happen. I say this because Eric and Maddie will at least be in Seymour for a few years since they've bought a house.
It will be a lot easier for Mom and Dad to move since Mom turned in her resignation notice at the nursing home on Monday. Not for two weeks. Not even for one. It was effective Friday. She had been looking at a job as head nurse at the Jackson County Health Clinic downtown (just a few blocks from the house), interview, job shadow and all. Her job shadow was scheduled for Monday, in fact.
She called to tell me how happy she was that she'd broken her issue into two parts: 1. quitting the nursing home position, and 2. keeping her options open regarding the job downtown. I had told her before Oktoberfest weekend even if the Health Clinic job is a bum gig she might as well have a crappy job that's three blocks away versus a half-hour drive one way.
It gets better: I got a call later Monday. She had turned down the job downtown as well. As I've learned, she has a tendency to do this every once in a while - quit and free fall until another job lands in her lap. When she quit the hospital in 2000, she took classes to get her real estate license, only to ditch it (after selling one or two houses) later that year to work at a doctor's office.
I hate that she was so proud of her tackling her issue, but I really hate that she tried to pass this off to me as something I should do if I ever encountered a dilemma. I'm well aware of deadlines and potential crises looming ahead. And I know to keep the graduate school applications in one pile and the research material for my Kinks project in another one. They are unrelated. But quitting a job is a two-part process, not two separate occasions: find a "better" job, quit your present one.
A dumb thing to do.
After the Zappa test on Tuesday, Andy and I had a bitch session of sorts. All this stuff with Mom was on my mind (nobody's going to go hungry, it's just I know, I KNOW until she finds another job she is going to grumble about expenses. And it's not like grad school applications are free. He who asks for money shall hear the bitching.), but Andy is having tendon problems in his left arm. For a guitarist, this is never good. He's had to cancel his show in December and had his surgery been on a Tuesday or a Thursday - you know how doctors are, your elbow can wait if it's good weather for golf - he would have needed me to cover Zappa for him.
I hate that his loss would have been my gain in a way, but his surgery has been scheduled for a Friday. Crisis averted.
Today I picked up a whopping four albums from Landlocked Music - I've promised myself a reward once every third payday:
Neil Young - Harvest & On The Beach
Alice Cooper - Pretties For You & Easy Action (his/their - the band was also called Alice Cooper until 1975 - first and second album, which were put out on Frank Zappa's Straight Records)
Alice Cooper - Refrigerator Heaven
David Briggs, who produced Easy Action to the band's dismay, also did all of Neil Young's albums aside from Harvest until his death in 1995, and did a damn good job. Small world...
I hate working on weekends, Shelley keeps reminding me it's extra income...but I'd like to see her deal with this region's finest batch of assholes for 5-8 hours on a Saturday or an entire open-to-close shift on a Sunday, where it seems EVERY nutjob has been let out of their little padded room and they have all congregated at the mall.
We'll see. I really like the idea of working at least through the Holidays. Pete has asked me how many hours I'd like...I told him as much as he needed me. I don't really want to twiddle my thumbs for the duration of winter break, which will run from December 20th to January 10th. For some reasons, that 22-day stretch seems so much longer than ever. Longer than that winter break where Shelley and I fell in love back around 2005/2006 - when I had my tonsils removed. Longer than my first Christmas as a non-Christian in 2006 and anticipated Shelley telling her parents off.
Maybe it's because I'll be in Bloomington. Maybe it's because Shelley won't be here. I get her place all to myself so I can watch Phyllis. This is a mixed blessing: yes, I won't be at my actual apartment and yes, it is nice every now and again to have some time/space to myself, but I have no idea how busy I'll be at Spencer's, which in turn will affect how busy my social life will be during break.
I'm hungry, I have work in 13 hours, and I've run out of things to talk about.
Alex
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