The Memoirs Of An Amnesiac

When It Rains, It Snows (Part IV)

2006-10-14T07:20:34Z

I knew this day needed something to perk it up a little. Every day requires at least one bright spot you can look back on when you ask yourself at the end of the day if anything notable was accomplished - if that day was really necessary, as the popular t-shirt put it. Thus, in between my two classes, I traveled to the one place I knew would be a treat for a bloke like me short on money but with a big vintage guitar fetish: Chicago Music Exchange. I never understood people who love vintage cars until I realized it was pretty much the same feeling as loving vintage guitars; the only difference is that vintage guitars are a lot easier to test drive. As my trembling hands took a Rickenbacker 330 6-string with a jetglow finish, rosewood neck and exorbitant price tag off of the wall, I closed my eyes and began indulging my inner Mod. The inner long-haired rock god was appeased with a cherry Gibson SG Double Neck and the country gentleman got his turn to shine with, well, a Gretsch Country Gentleman. Let me tell you; if you play guitar or bass and haven't checked this place out, you owe it to yourself to live vicariously through a couple minutes of playing a vintage but mint hunk o'heaven. The price tags are pretty much what you would expect, but it's still free to stare and play. As long as you don't drool on the finish.

These good vibrations kept going throughout my next class, Rock and Soul on the Radio. This class basically consists of watching music videos with Terri Hemmert (legendary Chicago DJ, fellow Beatle fanatic), and as such isn't what you would call intellectually challenging. It is fun, though, and it keeps me a full-time student, and full-time students get free CTA passes. Halfway through class, after watching a bit of a documentary on gospel and moving onto some vintage blues, the windows began shaking and the unmistakable one-two punch of thunder and lightning assaulted our senses. I glanced out the window and saw a lady wearing a nice pea-coat struggling to keep dry amidst the rain as the wind made her umbrella collapse upon itself. "It's God punishing us for switching from gospel to this secular music!" Terri quipped and the class continued on its merry way. However, when class let out and I glanced out at the pouring rain beating heavily against the windows of the main entrance, I briefly considered that Terri should have saved Robert Johnson for next week and led the class on a singalong of "Amazing Grace."

I've often said that only the bald know how hard it rains. You can read other meanings into that aphorism, but in a purely literal sense it's just as effective. When you're walking through the rain, having a lot of hair acts as an umbrella. Unfortunately, if your long umbrella-hair is curly, the rain tends to straighten it out quite a bit, leaving its length to expand to nearly double of that which dry. If you add glasses to this equation, the fog and moisture that accumulate on the lenses gets to be unwieldy and can necessitate a wish to have windshield wipers installed upon them. I was struggling with the difficulty of navigating across a busy street with such compromised vision when I suddenly felt my socks go damp as I walked into a giant puddle. "Now how did that happen?" I thought to myself. "I've got my big heavy boots on!" But when I removed my glasses and looked at the boots I saw that two large holes had mysteriously formed in the sides of them. As I continued to walk to my train, I heard a faint squelching sound with every step. "The first second I get home," I muttered to myself, "I'm gonna make myself another hot totty." (By now, dear readers, my obsession with the drink must seem troubling. But desperate times call for desperate totties.)

I glanced at my watch to see if I still had time to make the 9:30 train back home; naturally, I had forgotten to reset it and it still read 6:27. I removed the watch and put it in my pocket to prevent any damage from the rain which, by now, had started soaking through my allegedly water resistant jacket. (Thanks a lot, the Gap.) Waterlogged, I trudged down the stairs of Union Station to the sight of a clock informing me cheerily that it was 9:42. Resigned to my fate, I figured that the extra hour between trains would at least be sufficient time to dry my clothing. As I sloshed into the men's bathroom, I waited around for a few minutes before entering. As an intermittent neurotic, I have my fair share of hangups regarding public restrooms. I simply cannot use a urinal with other blokes standing around me; they act as a dam. Of course, the levee breaks as soon as they piss off, but while they're present, I simply cannot do what I came there to do. Or, in the words of my own personal hero Jeff Murdoch, "You need security. You need to be able to say to yourself 'I'm safe! I'm alone! No one's going to walk in and laugh. Mummy's gone to the shops.'"

But I wasn't in there to partake in any bodily fluid activities. No, I had more serious issues to deal with. Namely, I could still barely see out of my glasses. If I cleaned the lenses on my shirt, they would end up just as wet as when I started. But seeing the hand-dryer next to the sink and the paper towel dispenser, I saw my opportunity. After about a minute's blowdrying, my glasses were good as new. Looking at the mirror, though, I realized my hair also needed this treatment. Crouching underneath the dryer, I began tilting my head back and forth, hoping to provide all possible angles of hair with the appropriate amount of heat. In around 5 minutes, I had upgraded my hair from drenched to damp and began to walk out the door.

But as I walked, the telltale squelchiness of my socks told me I still had work to do. I leaned against the sink and tried to kick the left boot off with the right. The dampness had made the boot cling to me, so such a maneuver was impossible. But more importantly, when the toe of my right boot met with the heel of the left boot, I found that it fit into the hole of the boot like a hand in glove. Clearly, these boot-holes had their origin in my attempts to kick them off rather than just unzipping them. I gently mentally rebuked myself, unzipped and removed my foot from the soaking piece of footwear and set about removing my socks. I stopped suddenly when I saw the pinkness of my skin underneath the black socks - I couldn't walk barefoot on this floor. I was in the men's bathroom at the largest train station in Illinois, who knew what disgusting fluids had spilled onto this floor in the past? On the other hand, I couldn't walk around until I got home with those twin squelchers downstairs. I removed the sock the rest of the way and hopped over to the dryer on one foot. Fanning my sock from side to side of the heat and hopping whilst resting my foot on my inner thigh, I must have been quite a sight to behold. I didn't bother to ask the gentleman who entered the room in the midst of this what his impression was. I just waited until he made his way into a stall, re-socked my nude foot and exited sheepishly, squelching all the while.

When It Rains, It Snows (Part III)

2006-10-06T06:59:47Z

I like sitting on the top deck of the train; I think it's because I like looking down on people. Sitting directly below me was a biracial couple with a crying 3-year old daughter. The white mother was talking on her cell phone and the black father told the daughter she was nasty. I don't know how that was supposed to make her stop crying. It reminded me of the homeless woman with the baby I saw the week before outside the train station. She was changing the tyke's diaper out in the cold. From the way the chitlin cried, though, it sounded as if it was being stabbed. It stuck with me for a while, because it showed me on a visceral level how stressful parenthood could be. But that woman had an excuse; the kid was probably sick and needed a doctor she couldn't afford. The parents sitting below me were relaxing on a train en route to the zoo. "Sex should not be fun, it yields monstrosities such as this," I considered. This bitterness continued when I got to Chicago and walked to the Red Line to go to the Apple Store to get a final diagnosis on my out-of-warranty little buddy.

Bums tend to pee on the Red Line a good deal. Walking onto the train, I breathed in and suddenly realized I had chosen the pee-train. It did amuse me though, because the Red Line takes you into the wealthiest and trendiest parts of Chicago. It means that the well-to-do businessmen and hipsters can dress as nicely as they want to, but they'll still smell pissy. On a humid day, the dank urine odour is undisguisable, highly recognizable, and impossible to ignore. Unlike the homeless people on the streets. They're easy to ignore. People begging for change are just another white noise in a city filled with car horns, el trains, and police sirens; "could you spare some change" seems to be a codeword for "look straight ahead and make no eye contact with the darkies."

Chicago's de facto segregation is second only to that of Detroit and Boston, and nowhere was that more apparent than off the Chicago stop of the Red Line. The Apple Store is located just north of the Loop next to upscale clothing stores and trendy restaurants on the corner of Michigan Avenue and Huron Street, which were named by the city as Honorary "Magnificant Mile Street" and "Today's Chicago Woman Street" respectively. On the other side of the street, a man with a Casio keyboard aimlessly was hitting keys, blissfully unaware of rhythm or melody. Wesley Willis he was not (although he may have approached Phillip Glass accidentally). He was standing next to a man missing a leg in a wheelchair who laughed and said "the few, the proud, the jarheads," who was standing next to another man who held a sign that read "No excuses, I'm just hungry." "Being hungry is still an excuse, it's just a good one," I thought. A deathly pale but elegant and wealthy-looking lady wearing a fur coat outside of one of the aforementioned upscale clothing stores handed a flyer advertising a sale to a black couple, saying "...perfume, jewelry, candles, anything at all - 60% off!" The couple politely took the flyer but continued their conversation and, as soon as the woman was out of eyeshot, threw the flyer in the trash. The people in this section of the city by and large struck me as blind and deaf to the realities surrounding them. At least their sense of smell was still active, and hopefully the scent of urine that wafts through the air on the Red Line permeates their clothing and gets them to at least pay attention to the unfortunate world that they encounter daily.

The resident Apple Store iPod "genius" told me that, due to copyright issues, there was nothing he could do to retrieve data from my still theoretically operational hard drive. His only suggestion was that I should Buy More Apple Products. I thanked him for my time and walked back onto the Red Line. What he told me wasn't much of a surprise; I suppose I just wanted closure on it. I shuffled my feet listlessly as I walked into my Introduction To Audio class. I had already taken the class last year, but had failed it outright. I suppose I hadn't realized how much math and anatomy one needed to understand in order to pass. Also, on a few fairly important quiz days I had arrived in class fresh from an erotic rendezvous and my mind understandably wandered from issues of sound pressure levels and tinnitus. But I suppose I just lost total confidence in my teacher on the first day of class when he stated with all confidence that Pete Townshend was a member of the Rolling Stones. That's a real quick and easy way to lose my respect.

My new professor is a lot better. He looks a lot like a cross between Steve Carrell (The Daily Show, 40-Year-Old Virgin) and John Darnielle (The Mountain Goats), and I suppose my enjoyment of the above two entertainers crossed over to my enjoyment of his lectures. It's too bad I slept for most of the class that day. I figured I had already heard most of this lecture once before so I gave into my growing exhaustion and caught up on those hours of sleep I lost mourning my iPod. When I woke up, he was warning us that earbuds can cause a serious risk to one's hearing. "Perhaps my iPod's death will preserve my hearing," I mused. The professor then continued that the biggest hearing loss comes to guitar players and drummers in rock bands. If it's not one thing, it's another, I suppose.

When It Rains, It Snows (Part II)

2006-10-05T05:45:33Z

"England no longer existed. He'd got that — somehow he'd got it. He tried again. America, he thought, has gone. He couldn't grasp it. He decided to start smaller again. New York has gone. No reaction. He'd never seriously believed it existed anyway. The dollar, he thought, had sunk for ever. Slight tremor there. Every Bogart movie has been wiped, he said to himself, and that gave him a nasty knock. McDonalds, he thought. There is no longer any such thing as a McDonald's hamburger. He passed out. When he came round a second later he found he was sobbing for his mother." - Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy

Trouble is, I couldn't really stay asleep. I woke up a good 2 hours before my alarm was set to go off to wake me for school that morning. As my drowsy eyes adjusted to the dawn light, I was jolted awake by the realization that my iPod was truly dead and gone and not coming back. It struck me as highly pathetic that a broken piece of technology could lead me to attempt to remember what those five stages of grieving were again. This was just a portable hard drive, easily replaceable.

Except that, during the course of my iPod's 15 month life, I filled and refilled it, picked and chose songs worthy of accompanying me on my voyages, edited genre and album information to ensure an accurate browsing experience, stole countless albums from friends and ex-girlfriends, and generally turned it into a fairly complete document of my musical tastes. All without backing it up, you see, because who has 20 free gigabytes of space? Certainly not I; this little metal rectangle categorized and archived nearly every song I've ever heard and enjoyed. Without that centralized order, I had no idea where to locate my music; it was suddenly all the fuck over the place.

These machines definitely created a paradigm shift. In the year following my purchase of the iPod, it was all I ever listened to. If I ever got a sudden pang to hear The Beatles doing "Roll Over Beethoven" or Kirsty MacColl's original version of the brilliant "They Don't Know," it was available to me with just a click. Most of all, though, music was no longer involved in the peripherals. Album art, track orders, and the very image or mystique of the artist no longer were considerations in one's enjoyment of the music. Suddenly every artist was equal, and songs had to stand for themselves outside the confines of one's conceptions about the artist or their position on an album's tracklist. Putting the iPod on shuffle would yield Badfinger going into Billie Holliday or Men Without Hats, followed by The Sex Pistols, Neutral Milk Hotel and Depeche Mode. The freeform pirate radio utopia of the 1960's that I'd never been exposed to in this ClearChannel world of homogenized FM playlists was suddenly a reality - and what's more, it was tailored directly to my musical interests. The focus was again squarely on the song - which, as a songwriter, is extremely helpful and inspiring. And all that was lost.

And I was going to be bored on my average 2 hours of train travel a day. And I wouldn't have anything to DJ with in friends' cars. And I wouldn't be able to use its backlight as a flashlight. Or its clock as a watch. This was an unmitigated catastrophe.

Drowsily, I came to terms with the fact that I wasn't going back to sleep. I cursed softly to myself, as Mondays are always especially trying. Not because I struggle to get back into the groove of weekdays, but because it's the only day of the week I have 2 classes. I stumbled to my dresser and put on a black sweater and a pair of somewhat tight blue jeans. This was as dressy as I normally got; if I'm to survive on this day, I might as well look good. But I needed something else to top off this wardrobe. I looked by the bamboo on my windowsill and saw the gold watch my grandpa gave me on my 18th birthday. It was his when he was a young man going to college in a big city in the 1940s and it's probably fairly valuable. I had never used it, thinking it more of a symbolic gift than a practical one. My iPod was always there to tell me the time, and I still had a bit of trouble reading nondigital watches, especially ones with Roman numerals. But it looked classy and it would probably come in handy - even if it hadn't been wound in a few months and was currently stopped at 6:27. It would be another 10 hours before I would be able to set it right again. At least it's right twice a day.

Still groggy, I made my way to the kitchen and fixed myself some cereal. However, I knew that wasn't enough. I was going to be downtown for most of the day, and I don't have the kind of disposable income that allows for buying things to eat in Chicago. Yes, I can always bring an apple or a bag of chips, but if I want a good meal on Mondays, I have to do it at the beginning of the day or at the end of the day. (I am well aware this is probably the worst diet plan since Atkins.) Thus, I fixed myself some instant coffee. I know only old, eccentric, and curmidgeonly grandmas drink instant coffee, but I'm too impatient to wait to brew coffee. A slice of apple pie and some Advil followed, and, as the pièce de résistance, I made myself another hot totty. Was I becoming an alcoholic or an old woman here? I rationalized it - if ever a day called for some rum for breakfast, today would be the one.

My mum's boyfriend, Mike, was in the dining room embroiled in his own technological nightmare involving a customer service call at his work. "They say technology makes our lives easier," I bitterly mused. He tore himself away from his frustrations to drive me to the train station. We told each other to have a good day, mostly because I think we both needed to fool ourselves.

When It Rains, It Snows (Part I)

2006-10-04T06:47:38Z

"I'm not even supposed to be here today!" - Dante Hicks, Clerks

This Monday, I debated whether or not I should even go to school. My professors tell me that, since we only meet once a week, every class is vital, and we should try and make it there come hell or high water. Still, I had my doubts about my ability to withstand that particular day.

After all, it was just two days prior, this Saturday, that I had suddenly come down with a mysterious fever. Unaware of my rapidly declining state of health, accompanied Kevin on an excursion to MicroCenter, Jewel, and White Castle, where (by all accounts) I made a complete ass out of myself. (Apparently I act drunk when I get really sick. Whodathunkit?) Following an intense fever dream that closely resembled a 6-hour Sweatshirt Fetus Head song, I decided to take medical action and take my temperature. Sure enough, it was an even 100 degrees (Fahrenheit, obviously). After another 9 hours of sleep and a hot totty (that's tea, honey and rum, for those so inclined to try one at home), my health slowly improved. However, my state of mind was not too much better after having a fatal incident with my beloved iPod.

I don't have a good track record when it comes to electronics or general things of value. Sometimes I think my subconscious is trying to tell me to rid my mind of possessions and live a simpler, nobler life less obstructed by maya, material goods and similar truth-blocking earwax. Sometimes I think I'm just a shit Midas. But suffice to say, at some point yesterday my iPod's hard drive ceased functioning. I know this because it displayed a cute but ominous picture of an iPod with two x's for eyes and a little frowny mouth displayed on its LCD screen. Rather than wait to take it to a professional, I Googled the term "sad ipod." After trying the Apple-Approved Official Instructions (which, unsurprisingly, provided little insight), my attention was caught by another solution. Apparently, the wires in the hard drive become misaligned from time to time, and while Apple would prefer you giving their licensed technicians some money, a simpler and more stress-relieving way to fix it is to drop it onto a hard surface. At first, I was a bit skeptical, but after reading page after page of happy droppers, I decided to give it a go.

I dropped it.

Nothing happened.

So I dropped it again.

That damn iPod's asterisk eyes kept staring up at me, lifelessly mocking my attempts to revive it.

"Maybe I'm just not dropping it from high enough," I said to myself.

I stood on my chair, holding my iPod exactly above where my mind had drawn an imaginary target and began the official countdown.

"Ipodlo 13, we are due to take off in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0 - ignition...LOOK OUT BELOW!"

With a thud, I heard my 15 month old baby hit the desk. I looked down at the result from my Cape Canaveral vantage point. Suddenly, I sank back to Earth as I saw the only thing scarier than a sad iPod face - a cracked LCD monitor.

Shit.

After surveying the damage for a good five minutes, I shrugged my shoulders in denial and said "Maybe it'll look better in the morning." I set my alarm for school the next day and drifted to sleep.

Hey Hey, My My, Christopher Reeve Will Never Die

2006-09-18T07:52:22Z

For my "Rock and Soul on the Radio" class, we were asked to write an obligatory "tell us something about yourself" paper. I think I took the assignment too seriously... I am posting it here just to prove a point or two about how one can be a writer just as much as a musician. Or something like that.

As I sit in my bedroom typing this, I glance at the many posters on my walls. All of them were bought or cut out of magazines about 10 years ago and never updated. Above my bed, The Beatles sit impeccably dressed in an alleyway, to my left The Who destroy their instruments at Monterey Pop, to my right Elvis stands with a double-neck Gibson looking unimpeachably cool despite being stranded on the set of another mediocre beach movie. Throughout middle school and high school, friends would come over and raise eyebrows at my chosen wall decorations. The rooms of my typical male friends might have one or two band posters, but they evenly balanced them with red convertibles and bikini girls with machine guns. But my interests were much more myopic: I knew I loved music, and that's pretty much all I bothered to Scotch tape to my walls. The pictures create a tapestry of classic rock and roll stars. They serve as a reminder that, even if nowadays I will more likely put on an indie band like The Hold Steady or Of Montreal for background music than listen to Sgt. Pepper for the thousandth time, my musical tastes would not be what they were today if I hadn't educated myself on the classics beforehand.

My parents should be credited for offering me an eclectic selection of music to listen to growing up. My mother got me into classic rock and power pop like The Move, Big Star and Badfinger, while my late father, a guitarist in a blues band, had a labyrinthine music collection that spanned from Django Reinhardt to Cream to Guided By Voices. With such a rich selection of music at my tiny fingertips, I latched onto The Beatles as my favourite automatically. It makes sense, because being a Beatle fan means getting a taste of nearly every conceivable genre, from folk to classical to Indian to blues to good old rock n’ roll. Eventually, at the tender age of 8, I began writing a short Beatles fanzine called Magical Mystery Magazine. Looking at old issues now, it’s quite the precocious effort – I never really thought that reviewing bootlegs of Get Back sessions was an unusual activity for an 11 year old. When I reached high school, the workload got too much to handle so I put production of the magazine to a halt. Besides, I was ready to make music instead of writing about music. With this in mind, I began learning to play every instrument available to me.

When I formed a band called The Uncontrollable Few at age 16, the influences I had accrued through osmosis from living in such a musical environment served me well. I wrote songs inspired by so many genres, when people asked what kind of music we played, I was honestly at a loss. I eventually gave up searching for a genre and started naming bands we were compared to. However, no matter how many Elvis Costello or White Stripes or No Doubt comparisons we get, they all coalesce into a distinct sound. It’s like how Paul McCartney wrote “The Long And Winding Road” as a Ray Charles song or “Lady Madonna” as a Fats Domino song but they both ended up pure Macca. The trick to maintaining artistic creativity is to remain open to every type of music because they will influence you somehow, whether consciously or unconsciously.

And that’s why I’m taking this class – what better way to discover new pop music than to start from the beginning? This evening, I had dinner with Megg, with whom I split songwriting responsibilities in The Uncontrollable Few, and we discussed the recording of the next album. We both modestly agreed that the material for this album is good enough to take over the musical world in a fortnight. (Well, maybe modest isn’t the word.) If we really are going to turn music from a hobby to a livelihood, a good education in rock history never hurts. When I go to bed tonight, the unblinking ghostly eyes of brilliant musicians from the past will stare down at me from posters. They let me know that, no matter what music I create in the future, I will always have one foot firmly placed in the past.

The Number 4 Is Important, Remember The Number 4 For Later On

2006-06-22T08:11:19Z

It's hard to talk about your understanding of and identification with an artist without sounding elitist. Calling yourself "the only one who understands David Hasselhoff" is not just presumptuous and self-centered (I'm pretty sure the Germans have a greater understanding of the works of Mr. Hasselhoff than you, douchebag), but it also has the adverse effect of making you seem like you're just a poseur attempting to gain credibility by claiming a deeper understanding than the typical run-of-the-mill fan. That said, if I was to choose any celebrity to have a good conversation over dinner with, it would be Pete Townshend. I identify with his songwriting, I identify with his fiction writing, I identify with (and at times emulate) his guitar playing, I even identify with his long periods of creative inactivity (not to mention periodic lapses in updating his blog, cough cough). And when you identify with somebody so much, you start to think of them as a friend. And when friends get slighted, you feel you have to speak up for them.

I know it's usually a moot point arguing with tabloid papers, but when they prevent an artist from creating art, that really burns my cupcakes. So when The Daily Mail forced Pete to pull the plug on a mininovel he was posting on his blog, I was fuckin' livid. I sharpened up the "letter to the editor"-writing skills I gained in Professor Stan "the Man" West's English class and jotted this little ditty to the editors of The Mail:

The unnecessarily vitriolic reaction to the content of Pete Townshend's latest writings (in the article "Children's charities attack Townshend for erotic teenage fiction" by Tom Bryant) is saddening, seeing as how his creative work is being judged and ultimately abandoned based upon his one unfortunate visit to a website. Your labelling it "an erotic short story about two 16-year-olds" is a drastic misrepresentation of the actual content of the work; the story is actually about a comedian that intended to protest "the drift we are making towards an extreme form of political correctness" according to Mr. Townshend. The offending segment was merely an expositional chapter where the main character detailed his first sexual experiences. It was a tastefully written and not unprecedented addition to Mr. Townshend's vast artistic oeuvre.

Townshend's work deals with childhood and sexuality quite often, from the undercurrent of childhood trauma running through Tommy, to a song about the discovery of masturbation in "Pictures of Lily," to the short stories regarding youthful sexual abuse in his book Horse's Neck. Just as his previous art has set a precedent of tasteful explorations of youthful sexuality, his works have been misunderstood and taken out of context to appear gratuitous and 'sick.' When "Pinball Wizard" was first released, many castigated Townshend for seemingly mocking a young crippled boy; when Tommy was released, all such accusations stopped. Similarly, when The Who released their first new songs after Townshend's addition to the sex offender's register, many raised eyebrows regarding the title of one of the songs - "Real Good Looking Boy." The song turned out to be autobiographical.

Upon hearing about the Mail's sneaky methods of reporting (informing children's charities of a few out-of-context selections from a story, getting their reaction, and writing a story that implied said charities started such a brash attack), Townshend abruptly halted work on the project and removed all finished chapters from his website. Shame on the Mail for standing in the way of artistic expression under the guise of political correctness (which, ironically, was what the story was created to remonstrate). I can only hope that such shortsighted furor does not again force such an important and celebrated artist to abstain from following his muse.

So I've got a podcast. And, much like this site, it's not completely abandoned regardless of my frequent sojourns from updating it. To prove my point, I put a brand new one up this evening. Do check it out, and subscribe with iTunes if you don't feel like checking back searching for increasingly infrequent new episodes.

Only The Bald Know How Hard It Rains

2006-06-05T04:41:56Z

I don't believe in many drugs. All the miracle effects that people purport to obtain from smoking, drinking, snorting, injecting, or absorbing their substance of choice simply aren't there for me. Every time I've consumed substantial amounts of alcohol, it's never succeeded in impairing my reason, judgment, or speech. I smoked pot and didn't understand the hubbub surrounding it. The differences I perceive between tested medicines and sugar-based placebos are practically nil. In short, I generally don't believe that chemicals have any effect over me. Such a perspective may be setting me up for unhealthy delusions of indestructibility, but I've not been proved wrong...with one exception.

Coffee is the one substance which works as advertised - and then some. The conversations I tend to embark upon while fueled by bottomless cups of coffee at late-night dining establishments can resemble flying in a plane with no wings; it's not unusual for me to have a (not literal) out-of-body experience where I realize that I am rambling on at long intervals about topics which, hours later, I will have no recollection of, much less any insight about. Coffee gets me instantly ambitious about any idea, whether it be fascinating or frivolous, practical or implausible, completely unexplored or completely overdone. The very entry you are reading now was written based upon a late-night whim of caffeine-fueled inspiration. In fact, I think it's safe to say that most of my ideas will never be developed or carried out without coffee being involved in some way.

And that's not a bad thing. Coffee may be a vice, but, as vices go, this one is for me. I've long believed that creation is one of the most beautiful things that a human being can do. Given a blank piece of paper, man can use it in an infinite amount of ways in order to enlighten and educate himself and others. And, if there is a better meaning of life than the enlightenment and education of one's self and others, I surely have not heard it. But one cannot enlighten or educate others without the initial spark of inspiration, which is ever-fleeting. If Greek myths spoke of an ambrosia that can help us capture and develop this elusive butterfly of creative thought, it would be relegated only to the gods, kept cloaked in mystery, and forbidden from the fallible clutches of mere mortals. As it is, you can get a decent cup of this ambrosia in any restaurant in this country, usually for no more than a buck fifty.

For those about to brew, we salute you.

If A Triangle Could Speak, It Would Say That God Is Eminently A High-Pitched Percussive Instrument

2006-05-24T01:11:44Z

Fact #1: Every artist creates a genre unto himself.
Fact #2: Art is seldom created in a vacuum.

It's a common complaint among modern artists working in a field that has been well-mined (including, at times, myself) that "everything has been done before"; there is often a palpable resentment towards the past because the artist wasn't lucky enough to have been born in a time when all the innovations of their chosen genre had yet to be unlocked. It's a frustrating cul de sac - the artist expends more and more effort trying to hit upon his own personal style within a genre that has been shaped by its very effortlessness. This is where all the pretentious postmodern codswallop and self-referential masturbation comes into play - frustrated artists who don't realize that, to create something lasting and meaningful, they need to stop trying so hard.

There's also a common misconception among (usually musical) critics that pastiches are not as good as the original works they emulate. Such critics would claim that, as pastiches don't chronologically come first, they must not be as original or creative. (These authenticity junkies are the same types who will magically transform into The Boy Who Cried Sell-Out at every chance they can get.) While derivative works may not be as creative since they did not require the same "unlocking of the door" moment of inspiration (to borrow an image from "Donald Duck In Mathemagic Land"), it in no way diminishes the integrity of the art. If a band has enough affection for a certain genre of music, their affection for it will come out in their joy at playing the music that they love. When pastiche artists (and no, that's not an oxymoron, smartass) hear the music they wish to emulate, they listen between the grooves; they don't hear the notes so much as the potential behind them.

For example, take North Carolina power popsters The Spongetones. Their 1982 album Beat Music is chock full of songs that, stylistically, would not have been out of place on The Beatles' 1964 album A Hard Day's Night. The style of that album is unique; yes, it fits into a multitude of genres like a Matryoshka doll, going from extremely general (pop music) to extremely specific (Merseybeat). But that particular album has a style that nobody has quite replicated like since then...not even The Beatles on subsequent albums. By the end of 1964, the Fab Four sounded very different; they were folkier and more introspective, with a noticable new country influence. They would not have progressed as artists and songwriters if they continued to mine their old sound. However, The Spongetones saw the genre created in A Hard Day's Night and loved it, for all of its youthful energy, jubilant singing and chiming Rickenbacker 12-string guitar parts. Thus, their approximation of this style not only inspired the songwriting, but it created an atmosphere that can only be made by people doing something that they genuinely love. The Spongetones saw an alternate universe: one where The Beatles continued writing songs trapped in suspended animation in early 1964. Although we can all be glad that The Beatles continued to grow as artists, you'd probably shit your pants if you came into posession of a completely unreleased Beatles album from 1964. It doesn't exist, but Beat Music does, and that's just as good. (To these ears at least.)

Of course, I added that last sentence because stating The Spongetones are as good as The Beatles is outrageous sacrilege to most music fans. The context behind a piece of art inevitably informs how it is created and perceived. 1982 was a much different time from 1964, and The Spongetones were not Liverpudlian children of World War II who became arguably the most famous faces of the 20th century. The Spongetones' anonymity and lack of major label hype means that Beat Music never has been and never will be considered on a par with A Hard Day's Night. But if we conducted a controlled experiment involving a human grown in a test tube to be genetically predisposed to liking pop music who heard both albums unaware of the image of (or outside opinions about) either group, who knows what conclusion it would reach?

When You Think About It, All Male Dogs Are Sons Of Bitches

2006-05-22T20:06:18Z

Ahh, LiveJournal, how I have missed you.

I've never been a big fan of the blogosphere (in fact, the fact that this word exists just made me throw up a little bit). It is a good way to keep tabs on people you like enough to be interested in their daily activities but not enough to actually talk to them in real life (you know, that thing that involves immediate interpersonal interactions and impressions independent of the Internet?), but I've never kept a blog to tell you what colour socks I am wearing. Unfortunately, that means that I tend to take my entries too seriously, even if my first entry deliberately toned down my imaginary audience's expectations. The problem is that, once I started writing longer and more well-thought-out entries (many of my most recent entries had gone through several rough drafts and outlines), I felt the need to top previous ones. I also began to cave into the regrettable (but oh-so-addictive) Facebook/MySpace "networking" (read: a much more quiz and chainletter-centric version of LiveJournal) phenomenon. Add that to the workload that a freshman year of college inevitably necessitates and a little bit of hormonal teenager emoness that I didn't feel the need to inflict upon an already over-crowded blog market, and I felt the need to take a bit of a sabbatical from writing here.

Alright, enough excuses. I swear, from this point on, I will be a better content provider to you. I've got some fairly exciting (relatively speaking) projects in the planning stages that will be unveiled in this space in the coming weeks. But, to ameliorate your antici -

- pation, I'll turn to the next order of business: reclaiming our lost childhoods.

Who out there remembers Koala Yummies? They were these little cookies with koalas printed on them that came in an adorable little octagonal box. They were in a class all by themselves because of their unique taste; they were dry and biscuit-like on the outside, but with a chocolate center (and later, strawberry) that was nearly narcotic with its sheer addictive force. I can attribute a good eighth of my current body weight to my early years of noshing upon these delicious bastards. My sister Colleenn and I used to go grocery shopping with our mum, take a box of Koala Yummies off the shelf and start eating them in the store. We couldn't wait to get the package home; those little fuckers were just so goddamned good our young minds could not handle the anticipation. So, with our preteen fists, we would snatch 4 or 5 Yummies and stuff them wantonly into our mouths, crumbs cascading down our chins. By the time we got to the checkout line, we'd sheepishly hand the cashier an empty Yummies box and figure, since we had already eaten that box, we'd need to get another one. But, anticipating the inevitable craving we would have on the car ride home, we decided to get a few more just to last us through the week. We kept filling the carts with the eight-sided boxes, confident that, should we ever run out, we could always go back and get another box or twenty.

Unfortunately, all things (good or bad) must come to an end. Just like its marsupial namesake, it soon became an endangered species; the difference being that the eventual extinction of Koala Yummies was much more of a cause for panic than just another run-of-the-mill dead animal. It's an irrefutable law of consumer nature that, once the consumer finds a product they completely adore, it must be discontinued. What other excuse could there be for these wonderous edible slices of heaven to go the way of Ayds? Colleenn and I went through many harrowing weeks of cold turkey withdrawal from the snacks. I'm pretty sure that, after I forced my parents to lock me in my room, the wallpaper started spinning around like a kaleidoscope and I think I hallucinated that a dead panda was crawling across the ceiling before it dropped onto me, but I could be wrong. I do remember screaming at the top of my voice "ONE MORE YUMMY! JUST ONE FUCKING MORE YUMMY!" but the point was moot. There were no more Yummies in the store, and if we had found another supply, it would inevitably have been depleted and we would have to go through withdrawal again. It was better to just deal with our addiction and try to rebuild our shattered lives.

Flash forward to last week. My family is perusing the aisles at an Asian grocery store, pondering the signs that say "Fresh Live Goat" and the ridiculous Engrish translations. (Do Asian people laugh as much when American products are given poor translations?) Suddenly, among all the boxes of Hello Kitty brand dietary supplements, mochi, and chicken gizzards, Colleenn and I caught sight of a familiar octagonal box. "Could it be...." "After all these years...." "YUMMIES?" While the box had no English words as such, the pictures on the box said it all: a cute little smiling koala bear climbing up a eucalyptus tree covered with a familiar cookie. Would we be able to abstain, or would we willingly undo all the progress we have made since our turbulent days as Koala Junkies? I think you all know the goddamn answer to this one. But we no longer eat entire boxes at a time. We know now that there is a limited supply of the cookie, so we savour every bite as if it is our last. We know now that it could well be.

What Does Will Smith Call His Penis? Hitchcock.

2005-12-19T17:26:52Z

So last Thursday Jesus was sitting in the bathroom in his suite at the Ritz Hotel in New York City. he was in the big apple because he just got tickets to see Weezer at Madison Square Garden even though he didn't like their newest album because he felt loyalty to them because Pinkerton had gotten him through some tough times in grad school. He also knew that the Daytime Emmys were going to be happening the day after and even though his name wasn't on the guest list he still could probably schmooze his way inside on account of his being the son of God and all. But Jesus was feeling hungry so he turned on the tap and turned that water into wine and then he tried to turn his shower curtains into strings of neverending donuts or possibly raspberry-filled eclaires but it didn't work so he heaved a heavy sigh and went to go call room service. He ordered a chicken caesar salad with fat-free salad dressing because he was watching his figure because he figured that he could hook up with a girl sometime this weekend and he didn't want to let it show that he had let himself go since he absolved mankind of all sins. When the bellhop came up with Jesus' salad, Jesus thanked him greatly and went to go get his wallet to give the bellhop an extra special tip but he was perturbed to have found that he spent his last 20 dollars on cab fare to get him to the Ritz from Syracuse (where he was performing a miracle at a Star Wars convention by saving a young Luke Skywalker impersonator from being crushed by an oversized Wookie) so he decided he would grant the bellhop 3 wishes. The bellhop tried to wish for an infinite number of wishes and Jesus almost lost his cool because everyone knows such a wish is against the rules but he remembered his anger management classes and decided to forgive and forget but he was still a little pissed so he only let the bellhop have one wish, which he spent on wishing that he was Caucasian instead of African American. Jesus granted this wish and the newly white bellhop jumped for joy, quit his job and joined a country club. Jesus smiled to himself as he chowed down on his salad, happy that he was still able to make so many people happy; he was far from past his peak, he thought. However, he had made a fatal mistake: he had forgotten to make sure that his salad was kosher, and God, as a punishment, made Jesus the president of the Guided By Voices fan club, which may not seem like a very harsh punishment at first, but GBV fans are always impatient about when their newsletters come out and Bob Pollard kept releasing too many new albums and EPs for Jesus to keep up with and the fans sent him so much hate mail when Jesus innocently stated that he preferred the version of "Game Of Pricks" on Tigerbomb to the version on Alien Lanes that Jesus decided to drink himself into a stupor and stumble through the streets of New York until he eventually made his way to the Daytime Emmys and the security guards didn't believe that he was Jesus so he was turned away but he got into the afterparty and didn't go all the way with anybody but he did get to second base with Susan Lucci before they both passed out on a couch in a puddle of Steve Burton's vomit and Kim Zimmer's pancreatic fluids. Jesus woke up with a hangover the next morning and has been kind of depressed since then.

If You Abort A Cat, Do You Have To Do It Nine Times?

2005-07-10T21:53:47Z

This afternoon in the mail, I got an offer to subscribe to Out Magazine. The magazine's title referred not to the grandeur of the great outdoors or to fads that had gone out of style, but to where the magazine's target audience resided in relation to the closet. I stopped for a moment to entertain the notion that the mailman was trying to tell me something; only a few weeks earlier had he stuffed a box labeled "Happy 18th Birthday" containing a Gillette Mach 3 razor into the mailbox. (It must have been him - how would the Gillette corporation know it was my birthday or that I had let myself grow scruffly in the past few months?) But I discarded this hypothesis, realizing the subscription notice likely came from the mailing list of the Human Rights Campaign or one of the other civil rights organizations I had given my personal information to. Apparently, since I had signed so many pro-gay rights petitions, they figured I must have been a member of the demographic I was working to support. Regardless of where they got my information, I decided to throw it out with the coupons for stool softener, Columbia Record House catalogs, and surveys addressed to long deceased family members. It's not that I was uncomfortable with receiving an envelope decorated with a shirtless hunk smiling as he pointed to the polls and advice headlines, but I have as much use for a magazine written for the gay population as I do for Golf Weekly or Paraplegic Digest. I am an irrevocably straight man and there's nothing I can do to change that. The reason that statement seems to contain a tinge of regret is that I have tried. Not as a whim or for the sake of experience, but out of the curiosity and confusion that every honest pubescent goes through. At one point, I tried to be gay, and I failed miserably, doomed to forever be straight as an arrow.

As anyone who's ever read an essay, seen a very special Degrassi episode, or watched a documentary about coming out of the closet knows, the first step for many to come to terms with their sexual preferences was the insinuations of their classmates. The cliche goes a little something like this: a troubled kid gets called a fag in the locker room by some lunky shitmeat and comes to realize that he is more attracted to the same sex then the opposite. Although they likely would have eventually realized their preference, the school bullies are usually a catalyst in the closet-evacuation process. And that would have worked great, except for the fact that in the 1990s, the popular slang changed. It began taking such previously descriptive words as "gay," "queer," and "fag" as ad hominem attacks with a meaning that loosely translates to "something not desirable." And suddenly everything and everyone was gay, according to the bullies. To the bullied, there was more adolescent confusion than ever.

Not that I considered myself a particularly confused child. The chronology of my formative years continues in a straight line in every sense of the word; from a 5-year-old enjoying the skintight aerobic costumes on an exercise program, to a 7-year old discovering the forbidden pleasures of a Victoria's Secret catalog, to a 9-year old staying up late to catch movies on cable that promised brief nudity but provided nothing but a short and disappointing ass shot, to an 11-year old sneaking glances at a friend's tattered issue of Playboy, to a 13-year old with a brand new Internet connection...it seemed all signs led directly to a life of unambiguous boy-meets-girl action. But something went askew when Junior High started and the macho bravado began flaring up in the males faster than the acne on their faces. This new sports-loving paradigm did not appeal to me, so I started cultivating my ever-growing sense of bizarre humour. This type of wit is built upon a love of non-sequitors, wordplay, and unrestrained silliness - quite a distance from the "girl from Nantucket" form of comedy embraced by the testosterone gang. And in a junior high locker room, where the scents from Junior's first deodorant waft through the air and cause the ceiling tiles to rot, the ability to recite "The Knights Who Say Ni" down to a syllable is less likely to get you adulation than it is to build your reputation as a 100% grade A limp-wristed parade-attending Liberace-listening lisping sissy faggot.

Which was news to me. My 28.8 kbps modem was far from lightning fast, but it did broaden my horizons as to what the human body could do. But even in this state of erotic renaissance, I instinctively knew that I had no real interest in the hot man on man action advertised in the myriad of pop-up windows. Still, even at that age, I was open-minded enough not to dismiss the suggestion out of hand. What if they were right? What if I was gay and I didn't even know it? After all, I did admit Hugh Grant was pretty cute once in the less restrictive times of my childhood! What could it mean, what could it mean? But I never dwelled on it. I soon realized that, to many of my peers, anything from a ballpoint pen that had run out of ink to the opposing team in Bombardment were considered "faggots," and so I considered any dimwitted jarhead's comments on my humour to be little more than a red herring on my journey to sexual enlightenment. (Most of the flirting techniques employed by these guys had not progressed past the "me stealing your backpack means I like you" stage, so it wasn't like they were Dr. Ruth anyway.)

Fast forward to my freshman year of high school. Suddenly, there were dances where the dates were not required to keep 10 feet away from each other at all times, a more refined sense of style, and a Pom Pon team with a routine that could only be described as "throbbing." I was no longer frightened of the girls I had found attractive in the past, and eventually even talked to some of them. Things were looking up for me. Straight up. Until later that year when my best friend Ian came out of the closet. Naturally, I supported him in this experience (what kind of shallow shithead wouldn't?), but I was interested by the comments of some people who had heard the news. "I wouldn't have ever guessed it in him," they would say, as their eyes fixed to an empty wall while their minds tried to connect their mental image of Ian the Boy Scout and political auteur with their old media-enforced stereotypes of flamers in designer clothing dancing to loud techno music and shouting "HEYY!" at passersby. When I questioned them further, they listed some other stereotypes that hit fairly close to home; gay people usually aren't interested in sports (Ian and I gleefully participated in gym class to the least of our abilities), gay people usually are into theater (I had been in the last few school plays, including a flamboyant lead role in "The Emperor's New Clothes"), gay people can also be into crossdressing (my latest Halloween costume was Emma Munson, an 80 something Pepperpot-type). With so many red flags, how could I possibly be sure of my sexuality at this point? Well, luckily, my family had recently upgraded to a cable modem.

The file sharing servers of the early 2000s had more activity than an issue of Highlights, so it wasn't long before I found myself staring at a folder full of video files labeled with such foreign terms as "twinks" and "cubs". I decided to get rid of any remaining uneasiness, make the most of life (carpe homo: seize the gay), and double click on the first file. As I watched two fellows on a cheap hotel room bed give each other mutual oral satisfaction, I found my eyes wandering to the drapery; lime green with orange polka dots? When the hell was this video taken? That designer should be tarred and feathered...at least then there would be a nice black and white colour scheme. Another video was taken in a warehouse with two guys, a sailor uniform and a family-sized bucket of Vaseline. I noted the sailor's hairstyle; it was a weird kind of amalgam between Randy Travis and Terrance Trent D'arby. With so many gay hairdressers, you'd think at least one of them would tell him to shave that ugly rat's nest off his skull. A solo masturbation webcam movie was interesting because its star kept interrupting his action to type something on a nearby keyboard. What was he typing? The obvious answer was that he was cybering in some unknown chatroom, but I was intrigued by the notion that he was ordering a couple Vonnegut books from Amazon.com. After a rather pedestrian group facial on a midget, I stifled a yawn and called it a night. Gay porn simply wasn't doing it for me, but I didn't turn into the captain of the football team overnight, so I figured that there was still some room for experimentation.

Of course, the obvious question is why I would do so much experimentation, especially considering all the gay-bashing in the culture I live in. The disadvantages are obvious, but the advantages are there too: I could be able to dance and dress well without being self-conscious, and I would also have copious amounts of classiness. If being straight meant wearing a doorag, listening to Hoobastank and going to stockcar races, then I wanted no part of it! So through the years, the open-mindedness grew. With every visit to Boystown, every episode of Queer As Folk and every Pansy Division song, however, it was more of a cultural experience than a true exploration. I even kissed another guy once, but it didn't do anything for me (rubbing against stubble is more uncomfortable than it is sexy), it was just kind of awkward. I had come to terms with the fact that my heterosexuality was more than just a phase that I would outgrow. I learned from my experiences that sexual preference was not a choice but something we are born with. Many homophobes dismiss the concept of sexual preference being anything but a choice and any arguments to the contrary as simple gay propaganda, but speaking as a straight male, I know that every person has to be true to themselves. I did not decide I wanted to be heterosexual; I really believe that I cannot change. But, as I have a deeper understanding of the struggle to come out of the closet (for gays and straights alike), I regularly speak out for equality and understanding. Such activism may get me labeled as a queer, either by an immature nippledick in a locker room or by a well-meaning subscription notice, but I think my straightness actually gives me a little more credibility as a protester. Sexuality is a two-way street, and traveling down both ends of it taught me that one can never drive into oncoming traffic without eventually crashing.

In Soviet Russia, Cliché Overly Uses You!

2005-06-16T00:36:06Z

So Michael Jackson was acquitted two days ago. And, as Tim pointed out, the most popular reaction is just to shrug and move on. It's one of the biggest anticlimaxes in HIStory. I wasn't even going to comment on it at first, but I comment on all the major news stories anyway, so here goes nothing: I expected this from the getgo. And yes, that could have something to do with the fact that I didn't think he was guilty or with the fact that creating a reasonable doubt in a story...er...I mean...testimony with only one witness is like shooting fish in a barrel. It's got everything to do with the fact that he's a celebrity. Yeah, I know the court systems regularly make an example out of entertainers if their crime is a misdemeanor like shoplifting or getting caught with pot, but how many average Joes go back to their amusement park-esque mansion, tell their monkey butlers to double lock the door, adjust their nose in one of their platinum records, and proceed to put their hands down Macaulay Culkin's pants? MJ is unique (for better or for worse), and celebrities who have cases that differ from the average celebrity's tabloid fare (murder or child molestation vs. drunkenly fighting in a nightclub or speeding) usually get off (especially when molestation is the charge! OHHOHOHOHO!) Seriously, how could he be given a fair trial? Either he's got an advantage because he's Michael Jackson and he's the most famous pop singer ever, or he's got a disadvantage because he's Michael Jackson and he's completely fucking apeshit. But since his image is so bizarre, most people assumed he would be put away, so they don't really know what to think now. They'd gotten accustomed to believing he would be found guilty. Which, in all actuality, is a much better situation for comedians, especially because he'd be incarcerated in the same prison as Charles Manson. ("C'mon Charlie, I swear you'll like me! We've got so much in common! I know how much you love the Beatles; you wrote their lyrics on the wall in Sharon Tate's blood! Well, I own the publishing rights to all those lyrics!")

Now that Michael's back at Neverland, though, the only real reaction is a giant collective shrug of the shoulders and a progression on to the next hugely unimportant celebrity gossip. But what about Michael? Throughout this whole trial, we as a nation were constantly struggling to remember just why this guy was famous in the first place. Then we remembered he was a hugely popular pop singer once upon a time. At the height of the anti-Jackson hysteria, some even began to question if he was that popular. Well, when you've got 7 songs on a 9 track album released as Top Ten singles, I'm pretty sure you can take the "King Of Pop" throne. The big question now is if Michael can bring his career back to the music or if he is doomed to remain an eccentric has-been for the rest of his career. I believe he still has the talent to turn his experiences into affecting pop songs, he just needs focus. And who better to give him focus than me? Yeah, I know, I'm not exactly the most disciplined songwriter, but I've got a new track that'll kick everyone's ass. I know this because it's worked once before. Take a listen to my new remix of Billie Jean and tell me it doesn't get yo ass shakin'. It's got harder guitars to interest the modern rock audience, an Eels sample in the drums to placate the scenesters, my bootylicious bass line to blast out of the pimped out subwoofers, and Michael's vocals to remind everyone of how great a singer and songwriter he can be. Not only is the song musically effective, but the lyrics paint a claustrophobic picture of one of the countless paternity suits Jackson has been faced with throughout his career. In a broader sense, it rallies support for Jackson by showing this unflattering picture of others taking advantage of him. This recent court case was just another example of the shakedowns that have followed him ever since he left the Jackson 5, and this song can be applied metaphorically to his latest troubles. So come on all you DJs at clubs and on the radio. Play Billie Jean (Mr. Bun Remix) today and save Michael Jackson's career!

This One Time At Band Camp I Stuck A Sousaphone...

2005-06-15T00:01:04Z

Happy Flag Day everyone! I trust it that everyone is flying their freak flags ever higher today, and that somewhere Betsy Ross is smiling, and then being molested by George Washington, and then stabbing him with a sewing needle and getting up and smiling again. (Isn't American history a lot more interesting when you invent it yourself?) To celebrate, I'm posting a song from my long-discussed, rarely-pursued Holiday album. If this concept sounds unfamiliar, let me acquaint you with it: I've long thought that Christmas is unfairly overemphasized by seasonal songwriters, and seek to rectify this with an album of non-Noël holiday songs (including Groundhog Day, among others). In celebration of today, I'd like to unveil Flag Day, a somewhat miserable meditation upon this most arbitrary of holidays. The lyrics are vague enough to belong to any meaning you ascribe to it, but it'll hopefully stir up some vague feelings of despondency in ya. "This was a rotten Flag Day," indeed.

Not that my Flag Day has been bad in any way. To the contrary, I had an excellent Ringo walk today. What's that? You sound as if you've never had a Ringo walk. Perhaps you just don't know how to classify one. Basically, in "A Hard Day's Night," Ringo suddenly gets the urge to go out parading, irregardlessful of the important television broadcast later that night. I was sitting at home drinking coffee when a sudden restless ennui overtook my body. Maybe it was the newfound caffienergy, maybe it was the fact that I was nearing the end of a bloomin' book, "Atlas Shrugged" when I could be out there betraying a rich American widow or sipping palm wine in Tahiti. Well, not really. I just went out to Panera bread to get myself a Smokehouse Turkey sandwich, but the point was there - it's summer, and everyone needs to go out parading before it's too late. That is my assignment to you all...go on more Ringo walks! Have fun adventures! Seize the day! As a human being, you have the inherent energy to achieve greatness, surviving not as a right but as a choice...oh shit, I really should finish "Atlas Shrugged" before I turn into it.

I've sort of been putting it off because I'm very conflicted about it. It's an opus, an epic, and a masterwork. It is frequently breathtaking in its powerful descriptions of humanity and thorougly impressive in its vast scope. Not that I want to sound like the back jacket synopsis, but it's all true. However, it is intrinsically flawed due to its frequently contradictory style. The book's most staying qualities are its philosophical aphorisms (such as "if you think two premises contradict each other, check the premises") which are extremely appealing to the very human desire for logic. It is ironic, then, that these statements hailing logical thinking and blasting the concept of contradictions are found in a work rife with contradiction and logical fallacies. Rand tends to simplify all of her characters to a degree which makes them not only unrealistic but also incredibly biased. Nearly every character in the book is a straw man for Rand to either build up or knock down; either of the Dagny Taggart or John Galt variety, where their capitalist viewpoint is automatically linked to their universally virtuous characteristics, or of the Jim Taggart or Orren Boyle variety, where their belief in altruism is connected by default with the congenital evil of their characters. (Even their physical appearances are shown as symbolic of their politics; when Rand agrees with a character, they are strikingly handsome, when she disagrees with them, they are short and fat. Here more than ever is where critics dismiss Atlas as propaganda.) Rand's fans insist that the lapses in logic are not just trivial and irrelevant criticisms when compared to the point of the story but some even say that they are artistically integral to outlining the differences between the rational characters and the irrational ones. However, I am unable to ignore the inability of the author to practice what she preaches, and find that it seriously undermines the message of the book. (Hey, so now if none of my other vocations work out, I can always fall back on being a book critic.)

Other shit I've been meaning to tell you: The Uncontrollable Few is totally playing at a car show on June 26th (that's day after I can legally buy smokes and dildos). I'm not sure where it is, or if you have to have a really sweet vintage ride to get in (and no, i'm pretty sure a Delorian doesn't count), but it'll be broadcast on 95.9 The River, so you can totally listen when you're blasting down residential streets at 150 miles per hour in your clanky hunks of crap with racing stripes. We'll also be playing at 5:20 at Grovestock on Saturday, August 6th at Fishel Park in Downers Grove. That's gonna be on public access TV, so we've got all our mass media circuits covered. Especially now that you can buy our album at Tower Records. Yeah, bow down on your knees, motherfuckers. We have totally won music.

A Cynic's Guide To Graduation

2005-06-02T02:58:34Z

I don't think I'm a cynic; some people have told me I'm actually extremely idealistic. I won't admit to either one; I think doing so would heavily limit one's potential, because some things just deserve cynicism. Is graduation one of them? Perhaps, perhaps not. But the treatment of graduation usually is. First thing yesterday morning, I sat in my school's auditorium for graduation practice. I was completely surrounded by superseniors, pot smokers, ICP fans, and probation violators - in short, the opposite of MENSA. As I listened to the people to my immediate left and right (one of whom, Jeff Chaff, was a good childhood friend before we went our seperate ways...literally and figuratively) converse about their big pre-graduation smokeout and consequent trip down to the police station (having a weed party at the end of the month is like Christmas to quota-seeking officers), I noticed that our beloved principal with the phallic head Mr. Carr was blathering on about the importance of graduation. (I was able to block it out at first because most cliched speeches just tend to float into the background for me.) "Today is a momentous occasion, the first day of the rest of your life in many respects, and we wouldn't want to cheapen its importance by behaving inappropriately, so let's get a few ground rules straight..." I yawned and went back to the dumbass crew. "...this huge fuckin' rush of adrenaline, and I tore out running like a bat out of hell, but it was fuckin' pitch black, so this huge fuckin' tree branch smacks into my face and I'm fuckin' sprawled out on the ground, and that's when I hear the officers running through the yard..." It was like deciding whether to watch a Hallmark Channel TV Movie or a fast-paced action movie starring a complete dumbass. Kind of like "Speed."

After an interminable hour and a half of this, we went off to the senior breakfast. The food was decent and the coffee was plentiful, but the real reason we were there was to collect our senior awards. There was a controversy this year regarding the tradition; last year, in one of the most wicked examples of irony I've ever heard, the person who was voted "Biggest Complainer" actually complained about the dubious honour. Señor Carr responded by eliminating the voting altogether, instead of just getting rid of some of the awards people are more touchy about or, you know, telling people to GET THE FUCK OVER IT. But a petition was circulated to bring it back (let's hear it for student demonstration!) and a more neutered version was presented this year. I'm apparently "Most Likely To Invent Something," which is nice, but a little vague. (It would be better to be "Most Likely To Patent Something" - ideas are free, patents get you money.) We then watched the senior slideshow: a collage of pictures from the past 4 years of high school life. The soundtrack consisted of some hiphop bastardization of "Canon in D" with shitty nostalgic lyrics, "I'll Be There For You", and...wait for it...arpeggio in G...breakdown....arpeggio in G...another fucking breakdown...OVERUSED CHORD SEQUENCE...WHAT ELSE CAN IT BE...THAT'S RIGHT, IT'S FUCKIN' "GOOD RIDDANCE (TIME OF YOUR LIFE)!" Every graduation party in existence, every deadbeat guitarist who can string together 4 chords, every television series finale since 1997 has been infected by this musical holocaust. I'm not the boy who cried sellout; I think Billie Joe Armstrong is a solid songwriter and Green Day is a tight, talented band...but their songs can be so universally likable that they are embraced by everyone, whether they have musical taste or not. The band can be found on seemingly every teenagers iPod (right in between "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "Vertigo"), as if to give the normally Top 40-fawning listeners a bit of punk credibility. Well, that's not how it works. This song may have given Green Day credibility in the sense that they were brave enough to record an acoustic song that wouldn't be out of place as a prom theme, but the only credibility it gives to Green Day's fairweather fans is the mark of a Grade A, 100% pure, top of the line state of the art bog standard poseur. Scenesterisms aside, the song really is mawkish, predictable and overly sappy - which I guess is the point, but that doesn't excuse its flaws. If ever a song made you long for an inoperable ear tumor, it would be this one. Our "senior sponsor" Ms. Morrow heard Ian and I making tetchy remarks about the music choice, though, and told us "there is no cynicism at senior breakfast!" And again I wondered about why a lack of cynicism was so important in graduation. Is it really so necessary to take the proceedings seriously? Sure, we won't be coming back to the high school, but the best years of our lives are far from over. We're not significantly wiser or mature (the anecdotes from the Pot Posse cemented that), nor is our education finished (at least for most of us). In fact, one could make a case that the main thing a high school diploma gets us is an overqualification for work opportunities at McDonald's. Cynical? Why the hell not?

Fast forward a few hours. I'm in the gym trying to ignore the people next to me (who have stopped talking about their exploits at the police station long enough to congratulate each other on actually passing a test on basic American government) and playing with the annoying tassel upon my cap when it is announced with little fanfare that we are beginning to march our way into the auditorium. As I faintly hear the beginning of "Pomp And Circumstance" in the distance, I start getting a little watery. Not in the crying sense, like my sister (who has a Pavlovian reaction to cry every time she hears the song), but in the sense that I realized it probably wasn't a very good idea to have a can of Pepsi, a bottle of water and 3 glasses of Limeade earlier in the day. Fortunately, I took my mind off of it and the evening flowed well (groan). We started off with the National Anthem (of America, of course, although I'd have preferred singing the anthem of the Royal Canadian Kilted Yaksmen). According to tradition, hats are supposed to be removed out of respect...I've never been sure about what's so disrespectful about wearing a hat, after 12 years of having them banned in school. Hey, what if it's a hat that says "LET FREEDOM RING" or "FDNY" or "LAURA BUSH IS ONE FINE PIECE OF ASS" or something patriotic like that? Is it still disrespectful for some reason? It's just a piece of clothing guys. It should be neutral. If you don't want me to take my pants off every time I say the Pledge of Allegiance, I should be able to keep my goddamn hat where it is. But I caved to peer pressure and removed the cap. I tell you, normal hat hair is one thing, but graduation cap hair is excruciating. I'm not sure what kind of unholy cross between Robert Smith and Don King I must've looked like, but those in the crowd got to see a great new hairstyle. One thing I've always found interesting about graduation ceremonies is that the students seem to be displayed to the audience just so the speakers can have a visual aid to use when talking to the crowd about life after high school. During most performances, not just graduations, looking at the people in the crowd while performing is just as much of a show as the audience watching the action on the stage. This did not disappoint, as the crowd was filled with interesting members...especially when the band started playing. They played something called "The Jig Is Up," and I actually saw audience members crying. Keep in mind that the only way the song choice could have been less appropriate, nostalgic, or wistful would be if the band took my advice and did an orchestral arrangement of "Seven Nation Army." It was like weeping while hearing "Immigrant Song." While some outpoured their emotions in that way, I was enjoying an especially amusing audience member fighting a contentious battle against his eyelids...and losing. This fellow (I believe a member of the Durrani party) was so sure that nobody could see him that he gave up and began to revel in his drowsiness, only to wake himself up and pretend nothing had happened when the speeches began.

The first speech was by our valedictorian, Lauren Pierson. Now, Lauren's a good friend and one of the nicest people I know, so it's a shame that my cynicism reared its ugly head when her speech began. Oh, I set out to listen with an open mind, but then the opening line came: "We have reached the end of a long road." I think there's a machine somewhere that writes commencement speeches on command for orators running low on inspiration, and one of its most commonly used conceits is the road metaphor. It's simple, trite, and polite. Roads are long, roads end, roads can be bumpy, roads can have twists and turns, roads lead to brand new unknown places. The valedictorian is, in theory, the smartest student in the entire school, so it's a shame that, year after year, the speeches are so formulaic. I'm not expecting rhetoric up to the caliber of Martin Luther King or anything, but if there's any opportunity to give a speech that extra bang, they should definitely give it a shot. (Hey neat, I just used the words 'Martin Luther King,' 'shot,' 'bang,' and 'caliber' in the same sentence. I just ordered tickets for a rocket train to Hell.) Paul's speech had an open admission that he didn't have a lot of inspiration for writing a commencement speech. Come on, guys! You're being given an open forum for your thoughts, you should run wild with them...the audience will usually follow you as you chase them. This was the case with Ms. Schmidt's excellent speech; it may have gained some points with me because she referenced a few in-jokes I was privvy to and seemed to be speaking about me at times (no big head here, honest!), but it was very emotional without being heavyhanded and transcended the pedestrian nature of most commencement speeches. I gave it a thumbs aloft, which is more than can be said for the choir's two songs. First of all, by this time, we were all getting a little restless, and my mind had personally wandered to a great idea for a Hitchcock movie (chew on this, bitches: a guy goes to the men's room into a stall. Suddenly, he hears a murder going on outside the stall in the bathroom. He tries to make a cell phone call to the police, but he is overheard and the murderers decide that he knows too much so they hold him captive in the loo. He can't see any of the action, he just hears it, and from here the suspense comes. Might not be a good enough plotline for a whole movie, but it'd kick ass as a short film.), so the choir was not very welcomed. Secondly, while the songs were sung decently (I guess), the songwriting left much to be desired. I tuned out the lyrics for the most part after hearing a few objectionable phrases about the day being done or a setting sun or some shit, but the music was craftsmanlike to the extreme. If you looked up cliched in the dictionary, you would not only find the example of people saying "if you look up so and so in the dictionary, you'll find a picture of such and such," but you'd also be instructed to see also the chord sequence of these songs. I heard a flatted sixth in the latter one of the songs and it was like eyesight to the blind. Boo to unimaginative tunesmiths. Bah, at least it wasn't "Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)."

And then we graduated. Not a lot to speak of here, I think they do it the same as anywhere else, so nothing out of the ordinary happened. Except, of course for hearing the peanut gallery on either side of me snicker at a fellow with the middle name of "Buck" and respond to the middle initial of another with "you know what that F stands for." *world-weary sigh* This is what I'm not going to miss about high school. Think about it a second. You're forced to go to a building for four years with a couple hundred other people chosen not based on interest or intellect but on their geographic proximity to the school and age. Every once in a while you'll meet someone whom you click with, but for the most part you have to deal with assholes, preppies, druggies, dumbasses, jocks, geeks, sluts, cripples, hicks, thugs, goths, and people who think it's a good idea to wear T-shirts that say "sometimes I pee when I laugh." If you manage to separate the wheat from the chaff (OHHHH pwned l0lz), you'll find some decent people, though, and if you get on with them well enough, you'll contact them after school is over. It's far from the end, people. As long as we're not all locked in our rooms playing Playstation and eating Cheetos and being generally misanthropic, friendships aren't going to die here. They're just going to be tempered less by homework and complaints about the obstinance of the administration. And I can say, without a spot of cynicism, that this is pretty wicked.

What Happens When John D. Rockefeller Gets Angry? He Gets Philanthropist Off

2005-05-26T05:01:53Z

Alright. I know it's less than a week now until we graduate, and we should all be putting our finest transcendentalist hats on and looking at the world through our 20/20 lenses and all that Chicken Soup For The High School Soul bullshit. But some days are just kinda lousy, and when a shitty day crosses paths with me, I'm powerless to stop it; I just throw down my guard and let it enfold me like so many Senses Fail lyrics. Let me give you a bit of an update on my situation: I've been sick with the common cold for the past week or two, I've been hacking up phlegm and spitting like a goddamn man for entirely too long, I've had the kind of hot and cold flashes that are go hand in glove with triple digit fevers, and my head has been pounding like an Ethiopian's fist on the door of a closed restaurant. I don't have the kind of l337 hookups that can let me indulge in such high class commodities as Vicodin and Oxycontin, so I've got to stick with whatever's in my closet: a bottle of expired decade-old Robitussin, booze and plenty of Bayer. First things first: somewhere down the line, Robitussin forgot how to make goddamn cough syrup. Their new stuff tastes like flat Cherry Coke mixed with battery acid and topped with just a hint of fetid infant bile. Back in the 1990s, though, they had a pretty nice taste sensation going on in their factories. Maybe it's the active ingredients deactivating, but I'll be damned if the old shit ain't more palatable. Unfortunately, I've found that it has expired for a reason: that shit will FUCK YOU UP. Big time. I took some before school one day (I continued educating myself throughout this rancid ordeal, because I had a few commitments still, this being the last week of classes - I be no slackin' senior), and I remember very little apart from being asked if I was on weed, pontificating on the grand importance of Photoshop in today's society and quoting Morrissey's opus to Armageddon, "Everyday Is Like Sunday." In all, I wouldn't recommend taking any expired medications again, but lots of people enjoy feeling fucked up. That's why liquor is so popular; not because of the taste, but because of the likelihood of spending a couple hours in a weird haze. I don't drink alcohol usually; when I do, it's not to get drunk (I don't think I've ever been drunk), but just to get a touch drowsier. I'm apt to mix anything; my mum's always encouraged being creative with my food, and my suicides are infamous, so mixing drinks is virtually second nature to me. But it has to be subtle; a little Disaronno can go a long goddamned way. Even this can blow up in my face, though. One day, I made myself a drink consisting of Tropicana orange juice, pure lemon juice and 100 proof Southern Comfort. I didn't know if the drink had been made before; I had the feeling it was a Lawnmower or a Screwdriver; I proudly named the concoction a Lawnscrewer. The name turned out to be apt, because it's the kind of feeling one gets when one wakes up after a night of binge drinking and finds their dick stuck in the grass. Was it good? Oh, it was "pour the remainder down the sink" good. I don't care how sick you are, there are better ways to fall asleep than that...such as selling your soul to Satan. The Bayer treated me a little better, but I don't like doping myself up on all types of sundry medications, so I've been going au naturel lately. And the lesson I've learned from all this is that DRUGS ARE YOUR FRIENDS. Because if you're not doped up, then you're not chipper in the morning, and if you're not chipper, you forget to put on your GODDAMNED SEATBELT on the day the GODDAMNED POLICE DEPARTMENT decides to hold GODDAMNED SEATBELT ENFORCEMENTS! The choice for me? Druggie!

What the fuck is this whole "enforcement zone" bullshit anyway? If it's the kind of law that you have to enforce every once in a while to get people to actually take it seriously, then it's not an important enough law to begin with. They don't make a "MURDERING ENFORCEMENT DAY" every year just to make sure that nobody's killing anybody on that particular day and scare other people into curbing their homicidal urges. No, if this whole "Click It Or Ticket" shit actually mattered a whit (which it doesn't...wearing a seatbelt is a person's individual decision. If you're driving a couple blocks at 15 mph, you're not gonna need a seatbelt any more than you're gonna need kneepads, helmets and goggles), there wouldn't be any point to remind people about it. Instead, to meet their quota for the week and to prove some sort of point about their authority, they take a break from their chocolate-coated jelly-glazed creme-filled worlds and whip out their trusty mnemonic devices in front of a crowd of innocent children just wishing to get to their first period class. I was one of these pure and innocent children, and I didn't want no mothafuckin' seatbelt cloggin' up my shit on the way to school; I had my backpack, gym suit and notebook on my lap, and I wouldn't likely be tossed through the windshield if the car was suddenly forced to stop. Still, when I saw that I was entering a "seatbelt enforcement zone," I rolled my eyes and buckled the fuck up. That wasn't enough for the fuzz, and so a police officer got in front of our car (that's the only way they can think of to get people's cars to stop. Why don't people realize that policemen are holograms and if you don't believe they exist, you can just drive through them?) and told me to roll my window up and speak to Officer Dickbrain. (That wasn't his given name of course, but it was the name my mum bestowed upon him.) As I rolled the window up, I hung my wrists out the window in a "cuff me" fashion. I don't think he quite understood the sarcasm; I know he would've laughed if he'd have understood, right? Instead he asked me for my driver's license. Which was a stupid request, and I let him know it: "If I had a driver's license, would I be sitting in the passenger seat?" So he asked for a state ID, which I only carry when going to concerts, and a school ID, which I never got because it really doesn't have any advantages. Indeed, the only identification I could offer him was the schoolwork bearing my name. He argued that I would not be allowed in school without a valid ID, but that's bullshit; it's a small school, and everybody knows everyone (especially the graduating class). Besides, I've never been asked for an ID in school, and I should know, being a student. Maybe if Officer Dickbrain took the remedial Communications classes he so desperately needs, he would have a better idea as to the rules of my school. (Obviously, he didn't pay much attention to the school's time schedule; he figured that busting kiddies on frivolous charges was a more pressing matter than being on time and pursuing education.) Needing my vital stats, he asked me my name, date of birth, and address. (What restraint it took not to give Shawn Durrani's information.) I duly complied, but he took it upon himself to label my height and weight as 5'6 and 190 lb. First of all, you can't really ascertain correct statistics by looking at a sitting person; a policeman should know this. Secondly, I may be short and fat, but I'm not that short and fat. Thanks for the vote of confidence, Officer Dickbrain! And finally, aren't these statistics ones that the party being arrested should offer along with their name et al? The party usually knows these things, and it makes for a much more accurate system than relying on some douchy cop's carnival estimates. (Speaking of the word estimates, I want to disembowel any people who use the word "guesstimate." An estimate is a guess; the word is a redundancy ipso facto.) Long story short, I got out of the situation with a court date next month and a 55 dollar ticket. I'm considering playing a benefit concert in order to fund my criminal record, but I might just as well go downtown and beg for money from commuters. Which one would look better on a posterboard: "Give me a dollar and I'll tell you why" or "Will continue wearing clothes for $$$"?

Misanthropic Skin...or...I've Gotta Hand It To You

2005-04-28T16:51:03Z

The first time I ever took my hand off at the wrist, it was a cold day. What a queer feeling it was indeed...the nerve endings that always seemed to touch each other suddenly started functioning independently for the first time. There was no blood, there was no pain. As my hand crawled away I put my head on my forearm. How familiar the feeling was, yet it had no hand to share the sensations with. My hand climbed into the microwave and began revolving. Hotter it grew, leaving my arm to feel colder and colder by contrast. The fingers touched the sides of the oven as it spun like a phonograph playing a lovely sonata. My forearm longed for the new sensations its ex-best friend was currently enjoying but he could never imagine how it felt to be hit with such friendly radioactivity. It was not within his experience and he could never fit in the microwave. Not without detatching himself from the shoulder at least, and he was too loyal to ever leave where he belonged. Meanwhile, the hair on the back of my palm and knuckles began to singe and my beautiful cuticles started melting. Frantically, my fingers tried to send messages to my brain to stop the spinning stop the warmth stop the timer no more nukes but the message was never sent. The nub where my hand used to be hit at the off button, but, lacking the dexterity of fingers, pushing it was futile. My other hand could've stopped it, but it never had the bond with the right hand that my arm did. Sure, they had met and held each other on cold nights many times, but the attachment wasn't as intense as the eternal bond between arm and hand. Besides, that damned righty got all the attention, what with the handwriting and handshaking privileges. I should have been left handed, he said. Stop right supremacy! The southpaws shall rise again! The right hand continued to sweat and bleed and cry. The timer read 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and beeped. My hand jumped out of the microwave and attempted to rejoin my arm, but the arm flinched back in pain, not used to such a charred and smoking appendage touching it. My hand laid out on the counter for a half hour until it had cooled down enough to rejoin me. The hairs on my arm stood on end, feeling the warmth, sharing the heat he had felt on his own but had never been meant for him. Maybe it was the nuclear blast, maybe it was the period of solitude, but my hand never felt right since then. Sure, the dexterity returned and I could still sign my name, but it wasn't the same somehow. There is no scar, none of the charring remained, the skin on my fingers grew back. But now it seems as if there is a layer, a Great Wall of China stopping up communications between the two. My arm and my hand still love each other, but they won't let each other know that. The arm has its betrayal and jealousy, the hand has its guilt and foolishness. The blood will continue to flow within me until the day I die, but it will always be a couple of degrees warmer in my right hand.

You Think You're Sex In The City, But You're Really Just Foreplay In The Suburbs

2005-04-21T03:26:41Z

Not to make this Charlie's Fantabulous Journal o'Catholic Bashing, but upon hearing of lil' Joey Ratzinger's newfound Popedom, I had to comment. His official Papal (not to be confused with Paypal) name is Pope Benedict XVI, which I refuse to recognize because it's not only lame not to go all nonconsecutive on the Benedicts, but because it's too long a Roman numeral for me to be able to read it. Hey, I'm lazy. But not lazy enough to keep from being incensed by the fact that he joined the Hitler Youth at the age of 14. Sure, he was a "non-enthusiastic member," but I take that as meaning "he hated Jews just as much the rest of them, but he was a good enough Catholic not to want to kill them." And sure, he denounces that now, but that doesn't forgive Padre from being an asshole in other respects. Such as his views on homosexuality. Because apparently they exhibit "intrinsic moral evil". And being a former Nazi isn't intrinsically evil? You wanna be the pot or the kettle, Joe? I'm not gonna call for another Ali Agca, but I am gonna look at it as another nail in the Catholicism coffin. You see, by the time this geriatric (78 years old...didn't they learn anything from the last guy?) douche dies, there will probably be no Catholic church anymore. Don't believe me? Take a look at the attendance rates of Catholic churches as of late. Because apparently parents aren't too thrilled with the prospect of having their children molested by a fella in black. This is a fatal blow to the religion as children are keeping the religion alive. Many Catholics reach an age of reason, where they realize that putting all their faith in a religion that makes them guilty for being human isn't a very good way to go about life and subsequently drop out. The reason nobody notices these conversions is because the church still opposes birth control. Why? Because if Catholics started wearing condoms, not only would they realize that sex can indeed be a source of pleasure, but they would also stop creating new Catholics to perpetuate the religion's population. So now that more children are being taken out of the church, there will be fewer Catholics to make more Catholics. Maybe that's what St. Malachy meant when he predicted that the next pope after Joe Popelic will bring upon the apocalypse. Maybe the apocalypse he foresaw only applied to the church. That's where I'm hedging my bets. This pope, another one, and we're done. The Catholic Church vanishes in a puff of white cigar smoke and its members are free from antiquated ecclesiastical codswallop. Vatican law is all amended with a catechism that reads, in its entirety, "JUST KIDDING." But why sit on your hands until that glorious day? Contribute to the cause. Help the process along. Buy a nun some lingerie today.

And speaking of things I mention too much on my journal, I was just sitting here in the artroom listening to "How Soon Is Now" and Mr. Delisle asks me "Hey, is that the Smiths? I used to listen to them all the time when I was your age." How cool is that? Makes me not blame him as much for failing me.

And speaking of goings on at this school, something's been pissing me off lately. In the lunch hours, there's been a booth up in the cafeteria with a silhouette of two people on the tip of their toes smooching. It's advertising something called "Kiss A Senior Goodbye." There's a lot I find wrong with this. First of all, isn't selling a service like this called, I don't know, PROSTITUTION? Seems a little seedy to me (pun intended). Secondly, most of the people in charge of the booths would probably give it away for a cent anyway, so we're being overcharged by 99 cents for the dubious privilege of gettin' some goodbye lovin'. That brings to my last and most confused thought: which senior would be kissed goodbye? Only the ones that are selling them? Or are they selling seniors' kisses without consent? I was not consulted in this...if someone comes up to me and puckers up, I'm not going to disappoint, but I think it'd be nice for my pimps to tell me that I'm a hot commodity (chortle chortle). So, with these questions in mind, I went up to the booth with Ian. I was asked if I wanted to buy a kiss. I asked "How much tongue is in this kiss? A little? A lot? None? I just want my money's worth." She seemed genuinely taken aback and responded that the kisses they were selling were of the chocolate variety. So that explained one of my questions, but raised a whole bunch more. Such as WHY THE FUCK ARE THERE PICTURES OF PEOPLE KISSING EVERYWHERE ON YOUR FUCKING BOOTH? That's what I call false advertising. If you're going to make a pun, I encourage that...just don't mislead people. After I was informed of this fact, it was suggested that I could kiss some broad on the cheek who worked for the cause if I bought the chocolate. "Isn't that prostitution?" I questioned her. "Of course not, there's no sex." "That would cost extra, I'm assuming," I shot back. When she began stammering, Ian jumped in: "What is the money going towards." And that's what really picks my scab: apparently, the "good cause" advertised on the posters is to have the Marketing class students being able to go out to lunch with their bosses. Putting the obvious stupidity of this aside (if you want lunch with your boss, you shouldn't have to pay for the privilege...if the matter is the price, the big shot executive should be able to pay for it), it's misleading to imply that people are being helped by your "cause" when the money actually goes to feeding yourselves. (And from the looks of it, this broad could stand to go without lunch for a day, goddamnit.) I don't fault them in trying to raise money for themselves, but they went about it in the most scheming and manipulative way possible. They might as well put a booth up with the words "BLOW A SENIOR GOODBYE" in giant letters. Next to it, they can have a silhouette of a woman on her knees fellating a man in a Sentinel costume. When expectant horny seniors show up and drop their pants, they will be presented with a Blow Pop and a smile. There wouldn't be that much of a difference, but we'd have the hilarious added bonus of seeing the disappointment of the male senior class become palpable.

And apropos of nothing, happy birthday to Hitler! He'd've been 116 today. (Does that double contraction work? Even if it doesn't, I still dig it. Grammar be damned.) I personally had a party in his honour, and I tell you, it was damn fun to cater for. There were cupcakes with swastika frosting designs, a cake that read Geburtstag Macht Frei, and the pièce de résistance (sorry, wrong language): Gingerbread Jews! They're just like regular gingerbread men, but a lot more skeletal and skinny. Best things about that: one, it serves a lot more people, and two, these guys don't scream when they go into the oven.

Punch Ghandi And Win A Free Ipod!*

2005-04-17T01:10:21Z

As the threat of senioritis looms and becomes ever more apparent in my peers, I have found it necessary to take action against such an impending force in the form of many extracurricular activities throughout the next few weeks. Last week, I participated in Literary Fest, where I walked away with a First Place in the Essay category for my paper "Cannibalism: Hard To Swallow?" (The review of this paper hailed it as "well thought out" and "thoroughly disgusting.") This past weekend, I have been the Japanese representative for the Historical Security Council of 1967 at the Model UN conference in Wheaton. Our main objective was to solve the Israeli-Arab conflict which culminated in the Six-Day War. This activity accounts for much of the diction in this entry, which the more perceptive of my readers may have gathered is entirely too fucking formal. My apologies to readers who have been put off by the use of big ol' million dollar words, but it's quite hard to come down from the real ultimate diplomatic power wielded by this fictitious group of delegates. My, that was a crazy game of international diplomacy. Thus, in the spirit of the world of political make-believe I have just been privy to, the rest of this entry will be written as if these events had actually taken place. We'll start by going to The Daily Show, where Senior Correspondent Steven Colbert gave this report to host John Stewart:

Colbert: Sparks are a-flyin' with the UN Security Council, John. Denmark and the USSR are early head-butters on this issue, and, speaking as an observer stuck in the middle with Jews, I can definitely predict a bit of action on the side between the representatives of both these contentious nations. You know what they say, John, opposites attract. I say this with full diplomatic passivity: I would definitely not want to be that mattress tonight.
Stewart: But what of the issue of resolving to deploy peacekeeping troops?
Colbert: John, I foresee that the only troops that will be deployed will be covered with ripped pieces of rubber.
Stewart: Steven, don't you think you're being a touch...grody?
Colbert: The human body is a beautiful thing. The sooner the nations realize that peace can only be achieved when the countries are getting a piece, the sooner this conflict can be resolved.
Stewart: You're quite the idealist there, believing that love can make a difference in foreign policy.
Colbert: Idealist, John? Or pervert? Nobody said anything about love here. In this tense, frustrating, and erotically charged atmosphere, the only thing that seems to make a difference would be a big, throbbing, meaty Caucus (read: COCKUS).
Stewart: Thank you very much, Steve. Steven Colbert, everybody! We'll be right back.

After much deliberation upon this conflict, involving a walkout by the representatives of Denmark, Canada and India, a conclusion was reached and the Six-Day War was ended after a ceasefire. However, this peace was shortlived when it announced that China had been testing nuclear weapons and had bombed Taiwan without provocation. (Editor's note from 2005: This was quite a curveball, as it was the first news that we had gotten that was not based on historical fact.) The UN, however, not being the brightest matches in the book, did not understand this warning and no action was taken until China decided to bomb Tokyo. Speaking as the representative for Japan, I took this moment to say, unequivocally, HOLY FUCKING SHIT ASS MOTHAFUQ. Unfortunately, the committee could not make any decisions because the People's Republic of China was not recognized as a country by the UN. Reports circulated that Tokyo was almost entirely decimated as a result of the hydrogen bomb dropped and that the few survivors were killing each other in order to obtain more of the limited supplies for themselves. As there was much controversy whether or not to admit the Communist country of China (with Nigeria and Denmark being outspoken supporters of recognizing their sovereignty), the UN was essentially deadlocked.

So action was taken. India was first to act, noting that, as they shared a border with China, they had taken military measures to ensure that China did not overstep these boundaries and that they were essentially at war with China. The United States Of America similarly declared war and sent troops into China. Canada also declared war on China, sending 8,000 Mounties and 4,000 gallons of maple syrup. (It was still in bottles, so presumably these bottles caused many injuries when they were dropped from planes.) Japan, a pacifist nation, thanked these countries for their refusal to surrender to the plague of inactivity, and declared that they had put the "fist" back into "pacifist." France preferred to keep out of the situation altogether. There was some opposition to Canada's unprecedented warfare, and so Ontario separated from Canada to form another country called Groovesylvania (Ambassador Tobin switched sides at this point from Canada to Groovesylvania). Another report was released that stated that China had bombed Nigeria and that the family of the delegate from Denmark had been taken hostage by a troop from Tibet. At this point, America noted the tensions in Canada and annexed the entirety of Canada into a nation called the United Confederate States of the Upper Americas. In the meantime, France sent a private note to Japan saying "We'll send you nukes if you don't tell anybody." Their plan was apparently to sell all the countries nuclear weapons secretly so that, when all the countries destroy each other with warfare, they could stand tall and declare themselves emperors of the world. This backfired, however, when Japan decided to use their nuclear weapons to bomb France, along with India, the United States of America, Canada, Nigeria, Denmark, the USSR, Argentina, and itself by mistake. The council then got word that Australia was no more. It was reported that the continent had been bombed by an unknown force and that, due to the force of the blast, the remnants of its land had become engulfed by the surrounding waters and sunk into the ocean. With the world in such a state, we decided our work was done and adjourned our committee until next year.

Now, of course, if any of that previous paragraph was true, the year 2005 would exist only in the minds of hack science fiction writers and this LiveJournal would not exist at the rate we were going. That's why this was only a Model UN; to remind ourselves what the UN is capable of. The ambassador from Nigeria seemed to take this all a touch too seriously, telling the nations that it was "not amused by the continued mockery of this council." But it wasn't as much of a mockery as it seemed. The keynote speaker at the beginning noted that it is always up to the United Nations to keep peace throughout the world. By going nuke-crazy, we attempted to teach a lesson that peace cannot always come easily and that any acts of violence must be used with extreme caution and after much careful deliberation of the consequences. The decisions the UN makes have the opportunity to destroy the world in a very real way, and the insanity of the closing stages of the meetings only served to make that abundantly clear to all involved. Nigeria obviously did not understand the satire and unfortunately may not have learned as much from this meeting as his peers did. In the words of the famed poet and spokesman for a generation Steven Morrissey, "if it's not love, then it's the bomb that will bring us together." In closing, I believe we should continue in this vein and speculate that, if these events took place, Morrissey's songs would have been written a touch differently...

I was happy in the haze of the UN's power
But heaven knows I'm councilling now
I was looking for a threat and then I found a threat
And heaven knows I'm councilling now
In my country
Why do I give valuable sanctions
To countries that don't care if I live or die?
Two countries entwined in a bitter brawl
And heaven knows I'm councilling now
Oh, you've been a pacifist too long she said
And I, naturally, abstained
In my country
Why do I give valuable sanctions
To countries that don't care if I live or die?
What the breaking news said at the end of the day,
Gamal Nassar would have blushed
Oh, you've been occupied for too long, she said,
And I, naturally, bombed
In my country
Why do I smile
At countries that I'd much rather
bomb from the sky?....

I Put The Scene Back Into My Senior Class

2005-04-16T03:29:07Z

So it's been brought to my attention that I've got a bit of a provocative sense of humour. And that's fine with me. I always enjoy humour that makes people a touch uncomfortable, and I'm so used to that that at times, I forget the awesomely offensive power many of the things I say have. Not that I'm apologizing for any of it, I'm just so used to writing objectionable material that I get amused when people who are not used to it get extremely offended by it. Everyone, when confronted with disturbing things enough, can build up a resistance to them. An embalmer can be extremely mortified the first few times at the office, but the most gruesome corpse wouldn't cause a flinch to a seasoned professional. That's why websites like rotten.com are so popular. Suburban kids with no excitement in their life feel the need to build up their resistance to gore. And, when they think they've seen it all, there comes an even more grotesque piece of imagery. It's a kind of drug; people need to get stronger and stronger stuff to get a stronger buzz. But, as usual, I digress.

A couple weeks ago, we had a half-day at school. Half-days are completely useless, because none of the classes get enough time to do anything of worth. We might as well just sleep in. So, with this pessimistic view in mind, I stepped into my homeroom and proceeded to cynically extrapolate on how much of a waste of time it was. At this point, they gave us a piece of paper marked "Senior Survey." Oh boy. Here we get a chance to tell all whoever reads this nonsense what we think of the school. On the front, there were such perennial questions as "How conducive to learning do you find the environment?" or "How helpful are your teachers? Very helpful, somewhat helpful or not helpful at all? Put a tick in the appropriate box." I did no such thing, and turned instead to the back, where it asked me what college I planned to go to and what my plans (vacations, projects, etc) were if I did not wish to attend college. I whipped out my pen and, with a devil may care smirk on my face, answered that I was going to YOUR MOM UNIVERSITY!!!!! AHHH pwned. And my plans for the future?

"I'm gonna go on a mescaline binge. And then I'ma write about my experiences, all Hunter S. Thompson-style. And then I'm going to change the world with my words and saxophone solos. And that I am going to murder a famous religious figure and eat his skin to obtain his magical holy powers."

With that, I left the sheet upon my desk without signing my name to it. Fast forward to today. I get a pass to go down to Mrs. Wyrostek, my guidance counselor. When I sit down, I note that she has a somewhat nervous demeanor. She starts by telling me "A few weeks ago you took this Senior Survey, and when I read it, I found an answer that was a bit disturbing." "Oh?" "Yes, something about murdering and skineating." At this point, the answer vaguely flashed back into my mind and I suppressed a giggle as I muttered that it must've been some sort of joke. She offered me the piece of paper and I read my answer back. By this time I was smiling a mysterious smile (it was all I could do to keep from laughing in her face). "Now, don't get me wrong, I found it funny, I was just wondering if you could elaborate upon that one passage a little." Well, there's not a lot more to say...either you find black humour funny or you find it sick; if I had to explain why murdering religious officials was hilarious to me (keep in mind, I wrote this a week or so before the Pope joined the choir invisible), I would sound even worse than if they had found my secret plans to blow up the school. So I just said "it amounts to nothing more than blowing off steam at the end of a seemingly pointless day." And she told me how they took the answers seriously to try and gather data as to who in this school was progressing to college. Contrary to popular belief, these entries are all read personally...our comments make a difference! And my first thought was that if they really do read all of these, why don't they tell that to students, the majority of whom will automatically assume that they will go directly into a recycling bin. She even noted that many of the answers she had read were obviously not taking the objective seriously. So why should I be any different?

At this point, however, I had another worry on my mind. How did she even get this paper? I did not turn it in, nor did I put my name on it. They must've found the discarded paper near my desk and attached my name for me. This is a worrying action. Although they got the right person, what if they didn't? What would've happened if a person with a violent history was accused of writing these hilarious yet homicidal wishes? Would their sincere lack of knowledge about this "cry for help" be believed? I got off pretty easily because Mrs. Wyrostek likes me, but questioning an obviously snarky remark on a discarded and unsigned survey was a bit too totalitarian for my tastes. She continued to reiterate that she found the rant amusing and that she did not think of me as somebody to be scared of. If she didn't read my college essay (she called it one of the most solid admissions essays she had ever read), she may not have been so quick to dismiss this possible admission to Westmont's Columbine Memorial List of Students To Keep An Eye On. She even told me that she figured it was me because most of my peers would not know who Hunter S. Thompson was, so she was fairly complimentary about it, but it was a touch disturbing.

Yet funny. Very very funny. The second I got out of her office, the hallways and classrooms reverberated with the sound of joyous laughter erupting. I mean, that's the best possible reaction I could've gotten. Because when one attempts provocative humour, there are many aspects to it. First of all, there is the traditional humour aspect of laughing at the unexpected and exaggerated. Secondly is the somewhat guilty thought of "that's horrible, I shouldn't find that funny," which tends to make the laughter more pronounced. The final, and arguably funniest part, is when people take it seriously and get offended by it. The people who laugh at this element laugh because of how uptight the offended party seems; they can be thought of as foolish when compared to the person who laughed at the joke in the first place, even if most people realize that there is some element of truth in the outrage. These jokes mock that which is serious, which makes the humour very subversive. Laughing at them makes the serious issue seem less important and offends those who actually believe that something is sacred. Well, that's not true. If there is something sacred, I want to hear a joke about it. Murder and cannibalism are both still taboos, and that is precisely why I invoked them. The implication that I could transfer holiness from person to person by eating their skin is so bizarre that it gives the joke the exaggeration it needs to work, but even that is not too far away from the way such serial killers as David Berkowitz (the Son of Sam) or Charles Manson talk and write. Too close for comfort? The closer it hits home, the funnier it gets. And, since it was taken seriously enough to get me called down to the office, it must be quite a bit close to home for somebody in charge over at WHS. I'm just glad that some people have a sense of humour over there. Cause if they didn't, I'm afraid I'd have to murder all my classmates and teachers. AND YES THIS IS A WRITTEN THREAT.

What Do You Call A Country That Offers Free Birth Control? A Condemnation.

2005-04-05T01:17:08Z

Q: What's the difference between Terri Schiavo and the Pope?
A: The Pope got a feeding tube.

If you laughed at that, good for you. If you think I am a bad person for laughing at the misfortunes of others, be my guest, Christopher. It's not every day that the television news is plastered with a mixture of grief and relief because somebody who's held onto life for way too long final gives into the gratifying release of death. When two of these overhyped skeletons kick the bucket within a few days of each other, though, that's cause for much celebration. Not because the Pope or Terri Schiavo actually are in a better place or anything. It's because the television news can stop this boring countdown shit. And it wasn't just on the news. Every fucking channel had some pompous bullshit about one of these rotting bags of flesh, whether it's Catholic court cases (The Papal's Court with Cardinal Wapner) or concerts featuring acoustic songs about braindead anorexic broads (MTV's Unplugged with Terri Schiavo). They're both dead, so we can get to something that matters in the news. NO WAIT, THERE'S NEVER ANYTHING THAT MATTERS IN THE NEWS. So I guess we're back to Michael Jackson, folks. Just as in comedy, whenever the news runs out of shit to drag out mercilessly, they go back to the old mainstay of Michael Jackson. He's an easy target, and he's sure not going to beat the fuck out of somebody who libels him. It's like killing a mockingbird, except with more plastic surgeries. But I digress. Sadly enough, even the Pope's death isn't enough to get him out of the public eye. On the cover of every newspaper I see now, there's a picture of John Paul's corpse rotting away. And you know what? He hasn't looked this good in a decade! Sure, after his body lies out rotting in the Roman sun for 4 days (as is planned), he might look noticeably more disheveled (Vatican officials should really think about applying some suntan lotion so he doesn't peel), but it'll still be no worse than the sickly old holy guy with crappy posture that we've had to endure for too long already. But you know what? After all this funeral shit, we're gonna have to endure the selection of another Pope. (Since we've had two John Pauls already, couldn't the Vatican just be fair and give us a George Ringo? They're feeling left out.) And maybe that means we'll get a Catechism that moves the Catholic religion out of the 15th century and into the 16th (or, even, if we're lucky, the 17th! I'm not holding out for miracles, though). But for now, we've got to deal with every public figure imaginable coming out of the woodwork to sloppily fellate the still-warm corpse of The Holy Father Formerly Known As Karol Jozef Wojtyla. The most publicized of these tributes comes from our very own human paperweight, George W. Bush. At a press conference, Bush remarked that "throughout the West, John Paul's witness reminded us of our obligation to build a culture of life in which the strong protect the weak." And what better obligation than for a big strong priest to "protect" a weak and voluptuous altar boy? I may be perpetuating a stereotype here, but John Paul II presided over the most controversial period of Catholic history. As far as I can tell, Catholic history is divided into 4 sections: The Age Of Antiquity (1-692), The Middle Ages (692-1517), the Age Of Enlightenment (1517-2002), and the Age Of Bow-Chicka-Bow-Bow (2002-present). And now that the Pope has ushered in this proud new period, we need a new pope. A pope that can carry on that proud tradition of looking the other way and covering up allegations of child molestation. Now that I think of it, maybe we can turn this constant Michael Jackson coverage into a good thing after all.

But one thing that this country's whole Papal extravaganza has taught me is that we're living in a very Christian culture. Not because the founding fathers were Christians, because that is a flagrant lie, but in the sense that America is also an Elvis culture. Both religions have many followers, and even non-believers can quote at least one line from the Bible or "Heartbreak Hotel." Even the most fervent of atheists will at times say "God bless you" or "Oh Jesus Christ," but it goes further than that. People have the whole good vs. evil mindset where God is Good and Devil is Evil. People tend not to see things outside of the box. If they're told capitalism is good, they won't give socialism the time of day. This is known in psychobabblifical terms as a bifurcation, and it's a goddamn logical fallacy. Still, it shapes so much of American culture that one can grow up without spirituality yet still have fear of Satan that was installed in them with guilt. The ramifications of our country's Biblical fetish is plain to see in our entertainment. Look at the action movies we watch. They're all built on the same oversimplified formula of good vs. evil. And if there's one thing we like more than a good action movie, it's a good sequel. "Star Wars," "The Matrix," World Wars 1 & 2. So it's only apt that the Bible is a story that can be told in more than one part. The Old Testament had the archetypal story; there's a perfect world with a supreme being and a bunch of little cute angels. But one of them is a rebel without a cause; the James Dean of Heaven. His name is Satan. (And yes, Satan is a male; he's evil all the time, not just once a month.) He wears shades even though they're against Heaven's dress code, he tells the other angels to come and drink holy nectar with him all night long; he's generally a bad seed. One day, things get too tough, and Satan tells God to take his halo and shove it. That's the ultimate conflict; America loves a boss/employer conflict like that. And if there's one thing they like more than an ultimate evil bad guy, it's an ultimate evil bad guy that used to be good but was led astray. He eventually starts his domain up and calls it Hell. Now that's an awesome name; one syllable, to the point, alliterative with Heaven. Our good vs. evil conflict is well-designed. But where's the sequel? I guess most movies need to add a new character at the end of the first movie to set things up for a sequel. Alright, how will the entire fucking human race do? And when Satan Dean gets his leather glove-clad hands on it with his forbidden fruits, they used the ultimate hero to combat him: Jesus! (Played by Ben Affleck, or, if we can get the contracts in, Jude Law.) Cue opening montage for "The Bible 2: The New Testament." Enter The Messiah. (Or, alternatively, Electric Bible Boogaloo.)

Now, Jesus is a kickass hero because he's the underdog. America loves underdogs that succeed, like Luke Skywalker and Napoleon Dynamite. Of course, Jesus is God's son, but he's still just a meek little Jew in a predominantly Roman society. His death is salvation for mankind, but it leaves a lot of unanswered questions. Like, if Jesus's death would have redeemed mankind, why didn't he just kill himself? Did he really need to get all bloody and gross? Why not just have a heart attack or cancer? Answer: gore sells! "The Passion Of The Christ" has been one of the highest grossing movies of all time, and it ain't because it's got a great story or because Christians watch it for salvation. It's because it's the most high-budget snuff film ever made! And everybody knows that a scary movie is the greatest aphrodisiac known to man, better than green M&Ms, peaches, Viagra, the Special Olympics, you name it. Nothing's scarier or more arousing than a movie featuring a bunch of Romans beating the shit out of a long hair for 2 and a half hours. Tell me that you've never taken a date there! When that first nail goes in, you see your date jump, and you put your arm around her. "Come on baby," you coo in her ear. "He died for our sins, so we can sin all we want tonight. As long as we repent, we can spend all of eternity chilling with Mother Theresa." Smooth as silk. I think more children wore conceived after "The Passion Of The Christ" than "The Exorcist," "Friday The 13th" and "Schindler's List" combined. That's damn good batting average. So the New Testament went over so popularly, it's the main document of worship for most modern Christians. How can you follow up such a bitchin' sequel? Answer: "The Bible 3: Apocalypse Now!" Christ's Back, and This Time, He's Angry. A trilogy! Everyone loves trilogies! Now, the apocalypse has not occurred as of yet, but if St. Malachy's prophecy (that states there will only be two more Popes after John Paul until the Apocalypse) is correct, then we don't have to wait that much longer. Essentially, after everyone on Earth continues fucking up, Christ will come again, and...actually, let me just quote from the book of the screenplay:

...I saw an angel standing in the sun, who cried in a loud voice to all the birds flying in midair, "Come, gather together for the great supper of God, so that you may eat the flesh of kings, generals, and mighty men, of horses and their riders, and the flesh of all people, free and slave, small and great." Then I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to make war against the rider on the horse and his army. But the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who had performed the miraculous signs on his behalf. With these signs he had deluded those who had received the mark of the beast and worshiped his image. The two of them were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulfur. The rest of them were killed with the sword that came out of the mouth of the rider on the horse, and all the birds gorged themselves on their flesh. - Revelation 17:21

HOLY FUCKING SHIT THAT'S AWESOME! Just imagine the CGI blood and gorefest of this blockbuster. Makes those old days of Satan creating Hell in part one seem like child's play now, don't it? (I'm talking about the movie "Child's Play," of course...horror film my eye!) And then there's something called an Armageddon that everyone should be familiar with because of the titular movie with Bruce Willis and Liv Tyler (and Liv Tyler's dad singing on the soundtrack looking an awful lot like Joan Collins). That's basically the big showdown between God's army and Satan's army. Good and evil finally meet face to face. Luke faces Darth Vader! Goddamn, that shit gets the box office moving faster than a colonic irrigation! And I'm not going to spoil the end of the movie for y'all, but there's a happy ending which turns out to be rapturous for all involved. And there you have it, the greatest unproduced script of all time. Hey, it's no less hokey than "The Lord Of The Rings" or "The Matrix," and those things are as popular as 23-skiddoo! I don't know why Jerry Bruckheimer hasn't started production yet. Maybe he's waiting for technology to match up to the totally tubular visions of gratuitous chaos and carnage running around like sugarplum fairies in his flat little head. Hey, with the Pope back in the news, it's like built-in advertising for this whole series. You know how much hype the last Star Wars flick is getting? Well, like, double that, cause this shit's gonna be big. "White Chicks" big. "Clifford" big. God willing, maybe even "Kindergarten Cop" big. And with this film's lasting moral lessons and knockout scenes of slow-motion bone-crunching blood-spurting flesh-crawling action, who knows, maybe the American public will spend their time on something more substantial than deciding whether or not to keep some vapid cunt alive. Which reminds me of another joke:

Q: What's the difference between Terri Schiavo and a broken TV?
A: Fox News doesn't camp out on your front yard if you unplug a TV.

Wouldn't It Be Great To Hear An Erotic Book On Tape Read By Larry King?

2005-03-16T00:55:45Z

Happy Ides of March y'all. As we all (should) know, today, Julius Caesar was crossed by his own trusted senators. (Remember, if you're double crossed, it must happen twice. Otherwise, that don't make sense.) I think that if Youth and Government ever falls on a March 15th, somebody has to plan a big assassination in the Senate. Come on, how often do you get a chance like that? Anyroad, this day brings up a big ol' load of interesting ideas. First of all, the current calendar used by most of the Western World is the Gregorian calendar. It's a good enough system for most people to use if they don't think about it very much, but once they begin to take it apart, they realize it has an extremely misleading element. A calendar is nothing but a way to try and fulfill the knowledge of what day it is. Society needs such distinctions; if we went on without knowing what day it was, people would not have a concept of days beyond "today" or "yesterday." Sure, if no calendar system was imposed, somebody could make an appointment for "94 days from now," but using a calendar is just much easier. I accept this system. And I'm not going to argue with a year being 365 1/4 days or a day being 24 hours. Thazz scientific shizz, and I ain't gonna futz with that none. But the idea of having 7 days in a week and 12 months in a year is completely arbitrary and should be examined well before being adopted. Obviously people did not do this when we adopted the piece of shit currently in place. For the record, it's necessary to point out that any language is made, just as the calendar, as a way to understand other people's intentions. Sure, all words are simply letters from a manmade alphabet in different orders and lengths, unable to state things ipso facto. But certain words imply certain meanings, and I accept this system as well. It's just when people misuse this system that I get pissed the fuck off. To paraphrase Ayn Rand, A is A and it can be nothing else. Well, 10 is 10 and it can also be nothing else. So would somebody please inform me why, for the love of Ma'ens, is December the TWELFTH MOTHERFUCKING MONTH??!? Or November the 11th? Being etymologically minded, I personally just look at the prefix and make my assumptions from there, so I can't get used to looking at the letters "Sept" and think of September as anything more or less than the 7th month. Frankly, I'd rather use an aluminum foil dildo than to continue using this system. And yet, this bullshit calendar wants me to do such a thing. Looking for answers, I found that Pope Gregory XIII was not to blame, as he simply was correcting an earlier calendar: The Julian Calendar. The Julian Calendar was created by (you guessed it) Julius Caesar, who was the first to create a calendar with 365 days, completely overhauling the previous Roman calendar. Noble, ain't it? Wouldn't it be hard to create a new calendar? Especially one that fixed so many of the mistakes of the previous ones involving missing days of winter and a leap month (I shit you not, it was called the Mensis Intercalaris). In fact, 46 BC (when the Julian calendar was enacted), was 445 days long (this year was also appropriately called The Year of Confusion). So where does my bitching come in? Well, while making big-ass changes, he decided to make two just for change's sake. While January, February, March, April, May, June, September, October, November, and December were all in place, Julius had two more up his sleeve: July and August. These, of course, were named after Julius and Augustus Caesar (Augustus's month came later, it was originally the sixth month and called Sextilis). Yes, Julius took the opportunity to fuck up his great new invention by including self-serving tributes to his family in the middle of it. Hey, Jude? Where I come from, that's called a conflict of interest, bitch. Now, I don't care that he decided to add two months. He has the right to; after all, he invented the thing, and that's more than you've done. (Cracka ass cracka.) But what really burns me is that he chose to have those months right in the middle of the year, thus completely ruining all of the logical names for the rest of the months. If he really felt the need to be so self-aggrandizing, he should've at least put his two pet months at the end of the year where they wouldn't have bothered the flow of the rest of the calendar. But no, he just had to have his cake and eat it too; he had to leave his signature smeared like a skid mark on the underwear of society (as it were). So that's why I'm celebrating the Ides Of March; the old codger deserved it for such a stupid decision. Besides, if you're going to immortalize a Roman emperor, why not make it Caligula? Now, there's a guy that I'd be proud to have in my calendar.

With today being the Ides of March, that means that tomorrow is March 16th, the day I immortalized in the song of the same name on the new Uncontrollable Few record "Paper Scissors Rock" which you should all buy. The reason I chose that particular day was because thought that it'd be a good name of a song to have a random date with no significance or hidden meaning. I didn't want it to be near to any other festive occurance, it just seemed like the most average day that I could think of (while still being esthetically pleasing). After we started rehearsing the song a little, I realized that the date, when written in shorthand, is 3/16. I was extremely disappointed, because the evocation of one of the most over-quoted Biblical passages (For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life) would give the impression that we're a Christian band in some way (especially since the band 311 and the number for pi, 3.14 both have similar holidays around this time). It's sort of like Phish having to explain that their name doesn't represent Christ. So I was a little down about the date, until Mrs. Nielsen unleash an amazing alternate interpretation unto my mind. Since March 15th is the Ides of March, the narrator of the song, after being told to beware of the Ides of March, was led into a false sense of security and let his guard down. Thus, when his main squeeze severs all ties, it's all the more shocking and unexpected, which leads to the state of mind expressed in the song. Not to mention the fact that March 16th is right between the extreme bad luck of the Ides and the extreme good luck of St. Patrick's Day. So now, when somebody asks about the significance of that song, I can give them an answer that makes me look really smart. Hurray for accidentally awesome symbolism and Shakespearean allusions. I win at songwriting.

He Loved The Life Of The Sea & He Loved To Hang Out Down By The Pier Where The Men Dressed As Ladies

2005-03-11T01:22:08Z

Once upon a time there lived a man with no insight. Try as he might, he never could create a single original thought. He wrote page after page of essay, poetry, and aphorism, and yet every epiphany he created had already been thought of long before him. He grew lonely, for his curse was so complete, every phrase he thought to speak was preempted by another in the clique. His friends quickly disappeared, for no one would befriend someone with nothing to say. At the brink of despair, he sat alone, stinking of gin, thinking his stale stale thoughts and became drawn (rather predictably) to suicide. When writing his note to the world he said that he could not go on without any unique concepts to call his own. It was at this moment that he realized his entire life up to this point was a terrible parable. The moral was that creativity is lifeblood and that being unoriginal leads only to stagnation and death. Reading his death note back, he recognized this story to be moving, eloquent, and, yes, original! Dancing merrily, he smiled, for he was free of the spell. However, at this point, his creator informed him that he had imagined his whole existence and that his suicide note and sad sad life were only parts of a plot in someone else's infinitely more fertile imagination. "You tricked me, you bastard!" said the little man with his hands over his head. And then he exploded. The author sat at his desk, twirling his pen, happy at the conclusion of such a depressing yet meaningful tale. And then he began to wonder what would happen if his character was three-dimensional and real enough to start thinking his own original thoughts. And then he exploded.

THE END

I Am Human And I Hate Courtney Love Just Like Everybody Else Does

2005-03-02T23:10:07Z

I walked out of Westmont High School and exhaled to see if I could see my breath. I could.

I don't usually walk home; I usually bum a ride off a friend. I don't have my licence either, partially out of laziness, partially because I don't see the need to add to the pollution in our air, partially because I didn't want to deal with the costs of getting and keeping a license, but mainly because I don't want to have to deal with the trivialities of car maintenance. Westmont's a small town, and I can get basically anywhere I need by foot; if I need to get out of town I can take a train to my destination. Sure, public transportation isn't free, but neither is gas; I figure that I spend less on transportation every year than I would if I just filled up a tank of gas for a month. I don't need to upkeep a train, it's usually reliable and I only use it when I need to. Same thing with walking. So many people are afraid of walking because they've been behind the wheel so long that they don't remember what it's like to see the world from a backpacker's point of view. It reminded me of a eulogy I recently read about Hunter S. Thompson. I've never really been a fan of his work (it did open the door for countless uninspired retreads, irresponsible drug-fueled road trips and lame Halloween costumes), but I can definitely appreciate the point of view that such an event as the Republican National Convention would be better on the ground floor tripping on mescaline than from the incubated cocoon of a newscaster's press box. Sadly, in his later life, it seemed as though he was indelibly damaged by long-term drug use. Still, the ouvre he left behind was enough to inspire journalists to put paper to pen before the gunsmoke had cleared from the air. This crossed my mind as I crossed the street and noticed that my ears were beginning to go numb. My friend Kevin is not affected by winter weather, but I definitely noticed my uncomfortable state. Maybe I would rather be in a well-heated and luxurious car. It's just a question of circumstance; if the weather is comfortable and I have much time to spare, I will walk to my destination. If time is of the essence and the temperature is foreboding, I'd rather continue on the well-paved roads. But for now, I chose to take the path less travelled by.

I would have gotten a ride with my friend Ian, but he had left as I had stayed late, serving a detention for tardiness. I don't mean to be late for my first class daily, but my dreams have been getting more interesting as of late. I've never viewed my subconcious mind as an actual part of me; it seems rather like a shady, intanigble Quizinart that floats outside of my head when I am awake and processes the day's events and thoughts into a hallucination of sorts. The day that I was issued the detention, I had a dream where me, Ian, Liz and Tom were all sitting in my driveway smoking hookah, and then Tom slipped a reefer in my pocket. Suddenly, the credits for the show "Doug" started, and I was the show's protagonist Doug Funnie. Strangely, even though I was a cartoon character, I still felt the joint in my pocket. As I was playing in the Funnie basement with my dog Porkchop, the grandfather from "Rugrats" asked me to get his box of Metamucil. I found it on top of a large chest of drawers, which I attempted to scale. It toppled under my weight (even if, as a cartoon, I technically had none), and the next thing I knew, I was in an ambulance. My thoughts turned suddenly fearful, for I realized I still had a joint in my pocket. I was panicking because I knew that the doctors would find it, I would be arrested and my TV show would be taken off the air. It was then when my mom's repeated wake up calls took on a harsh enough tone to jostle me from my reverie and get me ready for school. I dragged the weight of my feet across the floor as I made it to school just a few minutes late. And sure, it caused me to serve a detention. I sat in Mr. Neurauter's room alone, searching the recycling bin for some hilariously stupid notes. And sure, that detention forced me to start walking home from school (which, by this point, had caused my hands to start becoming red with coldness). But I felt no anger or displeasure at either of these scenarios, because they were giving me life experience and giving me the opportunity to muse. I mean, I knew where certain elements of my dream had come from; Liz and I were talking a few days ago about marijuana, just as Ian and I had spent the past weekend talking of hookah bars. But the sudden interruption of Nickelodeon programs that I haven't seen in years is simply bizarre. Was there any significance? Freud believed that all dreams have some significance, no matter how vague or convoluted. Indeed, my subconcious likely wouldn't have fit these TV shows into my dream if I hadn't watched them a good deal as a youngster. But Freud never really explored the possibility of dreams simply having non sequitors. Just because the subjects in my dreams have significance, they don't neccessarily have symbolism as well. They just are. Just as a Quizinart just is. I've long thought that the biggest error humankind has ever made is to try and find logic where there is none. I personally believe in no higher power to the universe, but the way that all the elements and creatures interact with each other is so perfect that if it is a coincidence, it's a pretty awesome one. But not everything in this world is significant. Just as in dreams.

I walked a bit further and found a flag flying at half mast in front of a buisness. I hadn't read the news that day, but I didn't think there was any recent tragedy that would create the neccessity to fly a flag at half mast. I only thought flags flew at half mast in the face of a national tragedy such as a terrorist attack or the murder of a president. As I had heard of no such thing in school on this day, I figured that if such an event did occur, we must be extremely desensitized to tragedy to not even mention it. After the peace and prosperity of Clinton's 1990's, my senior class was given a rude interruption during the opening days of our freshman year (or maybe it was a twin interruption). Since then, we've mostly reverted back to the innocent frivolty that marked our junior high years. We wouldn't notice the death of over 1000 soldiers in Iraq, or the cruel beating that the economy suffers daily, or any other event worthy of a flag being flown at half mast. It would have to be something major, like an assassination to break through the all-American apathy that permeates our mindset. My curiosity got the better of me, so when I spotted a worker, I asked him why the flag was at half mast. He glanced up at it and replied "It's probably because of the tsunami disaster." I had always thought that the cut-off date for a flag at half mast was about a month. The tsunami disaster happened last December! Should we still be flying our flags at half-mast for the Kennedy assassination? Or what about for the Civil War? Tragedies cannot be prevented in life; that's what makes them tragedies. But you have to get over them at one point or another. You have to be willing to accept frivolty again. You have to let your own flag stand tall and proud once again. If the flag's still at half mast now, what else can we put it up for? There are a whole bunch of starving children in Ethiopia, why not have a flag demerit for them? What about the death of Hunter S. Thompson, is that mast-worthy? Who decides what's a tragedy and what's worthy of being held at half-mast? Johnny Cash was a great man, but not every flag in the country decided to fly at half mast in tribute to the Man in Black. So why continue to flog this dead horse (no pun intended). Aren't we trying to get Sri Lanka back on its feet and remain positive? Why not accept the fact that tragedies happen everyday? 3 people die every second, should we shed a tear for every one of them? I'll try not to be an asshole, but if I reminded myself of how shitty being a human being on this earth is every moment of every day, I wouldn't be able to continue as a member of this human race. We have to achieve a healthy balance; an equilibrium where we realize life's foibles and our mortality, yet still continue unabated. This is what I should have told the worker; I wonder what his reaction would've been. He's human, so he'd have understood, but it would've brought his day down considerably. Besides, he probably had lots of work to do. So I said "oh, I see" and I walked away.

As I got nearer to my house, I noticed a school bus full of junior high children. I could hear their rambunctiousness from a block away, and I pondered what it would be like to drive a school bus. I always have thought that hating children and not being able to drive were prerequisites to being a bus driver, but I realized that they're probably just detatched from the experience of being in charge of chauffering a bunch of annoying screaming 6th graders to their houses to play video games. I always had some respect for the bus driver when I took the bus home on certain occasions in high school when I had no ride and did not feel like walking; she seemed weary of the world, but very human. I understood her sighs as unintelligent hobags compared their collection of hormone-driven macho conquests and misguided hoodlums rebelling against a system they had no real understanding of except for how much it "sucked." I kept as quiet as she did and thanked her every time she dropped me off at my house. It was impersonal and far from jocular, but there was a quiet respect between her and myself. The exact same kind that I didn't see when a tubby child started shouting unintelligible comments at me from the back seat. I could not make out all of his words over the sounds of the bus sputtering down the road, but I got the gist of his remarks: that I was a gay-ass queer faggot and that I should suck his dick. It's always intriguing to hear the homoerotic comments that homophobes so frequently utter, and so I laughed heartily and made an obscene gesture involving my tongue to him. I wondered what could make him point me out in particular as a homosexual worthy of his taunting. Perhaps it is my long hair? But no, it seems as if many gay people would rather keep their hair well-groomed. Perhaps it was the large amount of papers that I held or my somewhat sloppy dress sense? Again, no, a typical gay stereotype would take care in their fashion and would rather carry some accessory that held their documents than to keep them languishing in an ephemeral mess. Was it the fact that I was walking instead of driving a car? Although the macho miscalculation of fast car = big dick may have been on his mind, I somehow doubted that this was at the heart of the matter. After all, I'm a high school senior, and as such am at least 4 grades older than him. And that's when it dawned on me. He decided to toss ridiculous epithets out the speeding bus window because he felt superior to me because he was riding in a vehicle. Regardless of the fact that he did not own the bus and was not driving it, the fact that he was in a moving vehicle with seats high off the ground was enough to make him look down upon me. If he were to see me on an eye-to-eye level, I'd obviously command more respect with my age. If he still persisted on labelling me with the appellation "fag," I would just have to accept him as he is: a riddlin-popping punk with a mouth bigger than his mind. One day his brash tones will get him into trouble with somebody; I myself am very nonviolent and would choose not to get in such a conflict. I'd just like to be there to see when that little bastard gets his just desserts.

I unlocked my back door, came into my house and warmed my hands over the flame on the stove. When they finally regained feeling, I was able to say that I was truly alive; when one's hands are numb, it belies a mind that is active. There's nothing like a walk to make one truly awake and aware of the world around them; I just hope the next time I go on a walk, the weather is more cooperative.

In Punk Today, You're Either Gay Or Avril Lavigne

2005-03-02T04:08:19Z

Hey, long time no see! What's that? What have I been doing all this month that I couldn't be buggered to update this here journal? Well, I'm glad you asked that, Anonymous! It is because I've been neck deep in a sea of musical effluvia that has all come to a head, on this Tuesday, March 1st of the year of our lord 2005. Every music fan worth their salt packet knows that Tuesdays are the only official day to release an album, and thus, I am releasing not one, not two, but THREE albums today. How about that shit?

The first album is your new favourite record of 2005. Call off the Grammies, the search is OVER. The first album by The Uncontrollable Few, "Paper Scissors Rock" will win every award in every genre (including some that need to be invented just to convey how much this album kicks your ass). Being the band's guitar player/co-singer/songwriter, I'm obviously an impartial observer, but just in case you needed any other proof (because we all know that anything I'm involved in immediately turns to gold), you can listen to 3 songs right here! After you pick yourself off of the ground (because these tunes'll blow you away), you can get your copy of the CD either from me or from our handy dandy online portal. (Soon the album will be distributed with Amazon.com and other big name companies, but for now, let your Paypal do the talking.) Now how much would you plan to pay for something like this? Major label CDs are now costing in upwards of 18 dollars these days, and just listen to the crap that's on the radio! An album of higher quality would have to cost 20 or 30 dollars! Well, what would you say if I told you that it was not just cheaper than the average record, but less than a dollar a song? (Eat it, iTunes.) Oh yes, you may call me crazy. But it is not I who am crazy; it is I who am mad! You're not like the others. You like the same things I do. Wax paper! Boiled football leather! Dog breath! We're not hitch-hiking anymore! We're riding! Err...wait a tic. Yeah, you can discount most of the last few sentences. But not the stuff about the awesomeness of this album. That's all good.

Speaking of "all good," during the month of February, a good amount of songwriters from all over this globe took the opportunity to write 14 new songs in the year's shortest month in an annual writing exercise called February Album Writing Month (or FAWM). I myself signed up and completed the 14 tunes in time, and they are all available on my Soundclick site. Of these 14, it's likely that about half of them will be chosen for the next Uncontrollable Few album, so if there's a song you can't live without hearing with a full band, let your voice be heard. There's Byrdsy power pop, political rawk, Nazi rockabilly...it really runs the gamut from "good" to "I just can't believe such awesomeness could be achieved by a mortal soul." You may be thinking that I am full of myself at the moment, and you're probably right (probably the effect of reading too much Ayn Rand). But there's only one way to find out if my ego is in check: to listen to the new music over and over again until your ears fall off. And then have deaf interpreters sign you how awesome I am. (Speaking of sign language, I now know how to say "stop fucking around" in sign language. Thanks much, random broad at the Ashbary! Does anybody realize how stream of consciousness this entry is? I think it's because this musical overdose hath made me sleepy and start babbling on incomprehensibly about shit that not nobody cares about. Like this right here. I bet you wouldn't miss anything if you just skipped over this nonsense. But then again, I could just be tricking you by putting the meaning of life right where I tell you not to read. The point is that you won't know what I have to say until you read it. And this is what I have to say: I have nothing to say. Which you probably figured out anyway, but now you know it for sure. I hope you learned a lesson. Flaming douchefucker.)

What's that? I promised you 3 albums released today? Oh, how silly of me. The last album released today has been a long work in progress and is likely familiar to you (especially if you read all of this rubbish). I am, of course, referring to the album of cover songs I have been posting on this space of the web. Over the past 19 entries, you have enjoyed 19 covers, from obscure to overplayed, from sloppy to snappy, but all uniquely awesome. It'll be a shame to see it go, but hey, that means more entries from me! Hurray for gumming up your friends page! W00t! The final one is a song by the Royales called About You. A while ago I fancied recording an entire bubblegum album under the name The Insulin, but I never was reckless enough to put so much sugar through my system (there's diabetes in my family tree, you know). Such sugary songwriting supplies can only be sustained sometimes in short but sweet samples (j'adore alliteration), and it doesn't get shorter or sweeter than this one. Two and a half minutes of Pixie Stick goodness is an excellent way to end this project. You can now all download these two albums and burn copies...or if your modem is too slow or you really dislike MP3 encoding, you can buy both of them off me for 5 bucks apiece! That's 10 dollars for two kickass albums! How the fuck can you lose? (Rhetorical.) And hey, if you want to buy them along with Paper Scissors Rock, it'll be all 3 for $20! Oh, this music has been the soundtrack of my life for the past few months...let it be the soundtrack of yours now too! Peace out. Cracka ass motha lunch.

Here, Have A Shit Sundae! Would You Like Some Sauce On It?

2005-02-15T04:33:28Z

The phenomenon of guilty pleasures is quite interesting in that it reveals how much of a musical snob somebody is. Much of the guilt related to a guilty pleasure is a kneejerk reaction against its popularity. It may be true that I am a scenester who can immediately dismiss music based upon how often it is played on the radio, but I can tell a good tune when I hear it. Still, popular opinion can be so divided against you that you'd be embarassed to admit your admiration of these songs in mixed company (or to a Pitchfork reviewer). Here is where the guilty pleasure was born; in an admiration of a song that is so strong it can transcend the wince-inducing elements it may contain. With this criteria, I compiled a mix CD of my most guilty pleasures with an explanation of why each one is guilty and why each one is a pleasure. So I hope you're all ready to indulge in some private musical delights. Pull your shades up and come with me...

Journey - Any Way You Want It: This is perhaps the perfect definition of a guilty pleasure. It's repetitive, simple and the lyrics are so cliched that they become nothing short of incomprehensible. They're grammatically correct, and that's just about it. (Sample lyric: "She loves to move, she loves to groove, she loves the loving things." No kidding.) But Steve Perry sings them with passion and conviction, and damn it all to hell, I turn it up every time it's on the radio. The ultimate 80's "party at the end of the credits" song.

Men Without Hats - The Safety Dance: For many, memories of this song are inexoribly linked to the visuals of midgets doing a merry jig, a young maiden looking into the camera with the glazed stare of a perpetual stoner, and the ridiculous safety dance itself. As far as I can tell, it involves jumping while sharply inclining your hands above your head and pelvis. How exactly this is safe is beyond me; I don't see how other dances are comparatively dangerous. The song it self is an astonishingly schlocky 80's concoction, but it reminds me of a simpler time when a band was able to popularize a nonsensical dance craze by simply making it the subject of a catchy-as-all-frig song. (See also "Do The Freddie" by Freddie and the Dreamers.) Oh, it also helps to adopt a bandwagonning attitude in the lyrics, where you reject all of the listener's friends if they do not adopt the safety dance as their style of boogie.

Blink 182 - What's My Age Again: I have no Dead Kennedys t-shirts, I do not believe it's better to burn out than to fade away and view the 'eternal youth' attitude of many punks to be foolish. Still, even though I pledge my allegiance to the flag of well-written pop melodies, I understand and tip my hat to the punk asthetic. The problem is that this ode to immaturity is about as far away from 'true' punk as one can get. I'm not the boy who cried sellout, but even I raise my eyebrows at the childish lyrics about sodomy and cheerfully nude music video. It's a very well crafted melody, though, and the perfectly overblown production, subtle harmonies and propulsive drumming of Travis Barker make this the ideal stupid party song, unifying in everyone's grudging acceptance of its pop perfection.

Michael Jackson - Black Or White: With the onslaught of child molestation accusations, people forget what a truly great showman Mr. Jackson is (or at least was). Michael sings it very well (even if he can't stop inserting stupid falsetto 'woo's every 3 seconds). The sentiment is ostensibly a plea for racial unity, but it's also an attempt to rationalize the skin colour changes that were becoming ever more apparent when this song was released. The lame and misguided 'rap' and 'Macaulay Culkin-in-his-room' segments (the latter of which I have deleted on my compilation; leave stupid preteen angst vignettes for Twisted Sister videos) are obvious pandering to try and please all mainstream outlets, but this song symbolized all that changed when "Smells Like Teen Spirit" replaced it as the #1 single. HIStory aside, you can't deny a solid song, and this one is crafted with the best of them.

The Rembrandts - I'll Be There For You: How catchy is too catchy? I personally don't think this can happen, but this opinion is tested by the relentlessly optimistic lyrics that give this song the cloying and grating characteristics required to earn it a spot on a recent VH1 list of worst songs ever. I would not go that far; it would not be a guilty pleasure at all if it had not been the theme to a famous TV show, but the amount with which it was overplayed tipped it off the scaled. Musically, it's a catalog of every thing that is great about pop music: shimmering Rickenbacker 12-strings, percussion from tambourines and handclaps, pitch-perfect harmonies and a droning Hammond organ. If they fit in a Mellotron or an extremely melodic bassline, I would orgasm every time I heard this song. As it is, it remains an extremely appealing song unworthy of the appelations so often thrown at it.

Herman's Hermits - I'm Henry The 8th, I Am: Second verse, same as the first! Such a catchy, if maddeningly cute song. Peter Noone's voice is so chipper and British that you can't help wanting to either hug him or hit him. And why is he so proud of being the 8th Henry? Shouldn't he be examining his wife's fetish with his name? Or possibly wondering what happened to the other 7 Henrys? These are important questions; ones that should be explained in the lyrics. Then again, having more than one verse would spoil the singalong fun.

Outkast - Hey Ya: I resisted this one for quite a while. I detested the fact that reviewers flocked to this song, praising it as Beatlesque. It proved, I thought, that if one is deprived of such an essential element as melody, the slightest hint of one will seem like manna from Heaven. No, this song was entirely too gimmicky, and I knew how lame it would to play it a year later (or tell somebody to "shake it like a Polaroid"). It has a definite shelf life, which is why I was surprised when I kept coming back to that off-key melody in the verses and the well-timed handclaps. It seemed to transcend its sell-by date of topical colloquialisms and vernacular. It sounds like a party in the studio, and the fun of that is infectious. Which, I suppose, was the transparently calculated marketing appeal that turned me off to the song in the first place. I gave in. So sue me.

Dexy's Midnight Runners - Come On Eileen: This song is just too bouncy for its own good. The fiddle, the banjo, the accordion, the brass...it just serves to give it a Disney-esque old-timey vibe, and the whole experience just reeks of forced hokeyness. But it's very uniting, everone will sing 'tu-rah-lu-rah' along with the song (regardless of their own range). And nobody ever seems to remember the bizarre changes in key and tempo. And what about this line: "With you in that dress/my thoughts, I confess, verge on dirty." Brilliant! These shifts make it much more complex than most remember it to be and add some much-needed surprises into the well-worn choruses.

The Cars - You Might Think: Maybe I'm being hasty here, but every single record produced in the 80s sounds like shit. Or at least you might think that from listening to this song. (Strange how much of an about-face this decade took from the great productions of the 70s.) The fake drums, the synths, the way-too-clean guitars, the digital echo all add up to a whole that's more polished than Ed Asner's head. Although I dig The Cars, the production makes me feel like I'm listening to an airline commercial. Ric Ocasek later went on to produce very good-sounding albums for Weezer and Guided By Voices, so I forgive him for his flirtation with the dark side of horribly thin production on this excellent tune.

Hanson - MMMBop: I hesitated in putting this on here. After all, I've seen the boys from Tulsa 3 times. I'm in the crowd on their recent "Underneath Acoustic" DVD, and I truly think their new album is completely guilt-free entertainment. However, hearing Taylor's prepubescent voice brings me back to the time when I despised this song with every ounce of passion in my young body. And it wasn't kneejerk jealousy, as my sister believed at the time. It was the fact that nobody knew what the hell an MMMBop was. Here's a note to any aspiring songwriters: do not make up a stupid new word to explain a feeling without explaining it to your readers first. It confuses them, marks you as too lazy to use existing words to express your thoughts, and, worst of all, labels you as a gimmicky one-hit-wonder. Luckily, Hanson was talented enough to transcend this pitfall, but it's still lame enough to make me guilty. After seeing the band live and experiencing the euphoria of fans singing along, I recognize the undeniable appeal of this song. Best of all, this fluffy bubblegum song, with its helium-laced vocals and record-scratching (which never works in a song. EVER.), is actually about death. Yep, you heard right. Next time you listen, pay close attention to the lyrics and their awareness of mortality; it may change your opinions about these brothers.

Fine Young Cannibals - She Drives Me Crazy: This is another case where period production and oversaturation spoils an otherwise decent song. Roland Gift's voice is as perfect as his teeth aren't, and that simple 2 note guitar octave riff is impossibly, uncannily catchy. These are the elements which led a nation to accept the song in spite of the farting synth bass and donkeyfuck snare drum sample. If the song was done by an R&B group in the 60's, it could well be considered a great Motown classic. As it is, it just reminds me of Pepsi commercials...and good music has never made me want to drink Coke (apart from "Dispepsi" by Negativland).

A-Ha - Take On Me: I believe that every trendy 80s throwback special on VH1 is required by law to include at least 10 seconds of this song's synthesizer riff. It epitomizes all that was schlocky about the decade, almost as if it were the audio version of a Rubick's cube. As with "Come On Eileen," whenever this song is played, most people cannot resist the urge to attempt that high falsetto note at the end of the chorus, thinking they can hit the note (they can't).

Real McCoy - Another Night: Early 90s Euro pop is like a Pixie Stick; you know you don't like it, you know it's bad for you, but you can't resist trying it every now and then to enjoy the rush you feel from it. This particular stick (the first CD my sister ever bought) has some poison mixed in with the sugar in the form of the truly horrible verses sung by a superlow bass with an indeterminate accent. The lyrics are also amusingly simplistic; to be amused, just listen to the song while tallying up the number of times the word "love" is used. Poison aside, I'll still occasionally satiate my inner 8-year-old girl and crank up the volume. And if you still can't like the song, just try singing "Island In The Sun" by Weezer to the chords...it fits hilariously well.

Spin Doctors - Two Princes: Another VH1 worst-of moment that has been much aligned mostly because of the inclusion of scat singing. Despite the fact that the majority of scat singing really lives up to its name, I'm not too bothered by this song's bebop inclinations so much as its intermittent presence in Disney movie trailers. It's just too simple and predigested a song for its own good that apparently no effort was spent on writing memorable lyrics. How else are we to explain the fact that nobody can remember the lyrics apart from "just go ahead now?" This repetitiveness is compounded by the fact that the song only has one chorus repeated again and again, occasionally interrupted by a bridge. I still find myself listening to the song waiting intently for this change because even the simplest change in this most repetitive of songs is enough to make it a stunningly catchy moment.

Richard Harris - MacArthur Park: It's easy to mock this song. I could mock it's ridiculous cake metaphor for love in the chorus. I could mock its overblown sentiment. I could mock Richard Harris's actor-turned-musician-and-it-shows voice. I could mock its whole Hollywood-takes-acid vibe. That's almost expected. It's not so easy to explain why this song hit #1. The runaway success is completely inexplicable; it's not very commercial, it's 7 minutes long and it has a line bemoaning a cake being left out in the rain. Was everybody in America on drugs in 1967? (Don't answer that.) Nonetheless, I still get my groove thang on to that awesome middle bit with its driving yet complex rhythm. Besides, I think it's safe to say that the record buying public will never see a recipe quite like this again. Oh no.

REM - Shiny Happy People: I love REM, but even they're guilty about this song. The band thought enough of it to allow it to be used in an episode of Sesame Street, and Michael Stipe said "it is kind of a fun, stupid song if you're six years old...I don't particularly want to sing it again." As I have previously noted, I rate this song fairly highly because of the chutzpah it took to release a song this undeniably honestly chipper during the grunge revolution (or even just to write an unabashedly simple song about joy). Sure, when being cut off in traffic or having your computer crash while saving a term paper, Mr. Stipe singing about loving all the people that you meet can grate fairly quickly, and the song thus gained a very bad reputation among bitter angsty people. It's still an extremely solid and well-written piece of music, from the opening 3/4 section leading into one of the perfect guitar riffs that seems to flow from Peter Buck's Rickenbacker to Kate Pierson of the B52's awesome background to the well timed handclaps.

Prince - Raspberry Beret: I've never really liked Prince. I guess funky songs about nailing your sister never really appealed to me. This song, while keeping the lascivious lyrical winks that are the purple one's trademark, opts instead for irresistable raspberry bubblegum pop. This music carries the lewd and bawdy verses, as does the beginning lines where Prince outlines the dynamic at his place of work. It just pulls you into the story, and forces you to view boss Mr. Magee as an old prude who should loosen up and embrace the leisurely lifestyle the Artist (at this point still known as himself) espouses. It's almost enough to make you even embrace the lame background vocals and Prince's creepy moaning.

Deep Blue Something - Breakfast At Tiffany's: Many put this song down as a piece of wimp-rock. And sure, it may be missing all of the edge and danger that some believe rock and roll to be all about, but this isn't The Sex Pistols. This is Deep Blue Something, and their whole ouevre is based upon...actually, now that I think about it, I think this song is their whole oeuvre. (Apart from a similarly whitebread song they wrote for TMBG called "We Might Be Giant, Too;" the song is about as awkward as the title.) VH1 again took joy in poking fun at the lyrics to this for their boring qualities, seemingly unaware that the whole point of the song was to be somewhat nonchalant to express the boredom in a relationship that has nothing going for it except for a shared enjoyment of an old movie.

Escape Club - Wild Wild West: This song was the song of my 2nd year, and even then I was able to tell that it would date very poorly with its lyrics about heading for the 1990s. Listening to it now, it's even more eternally stuck in 1989, with its timely lyrics about safe sex and Ronald Reagan. Worst of all, it has a hilariously wrong pseudo-Spanish rap section with such incredibly poorly-placed lines as "rrride the rrrhythm like a-rrriding a bike" and "here come the Escape Club to rock you tonight." So what keeps me coming back to this song? Could it be old childhood memories that I can't bear to part with? Or could it be that it's actually got a good song underneath all of its grasps for relevance? I think it's a little of both; the chorus can't be beat with a stick, but the rest of the song holds up like the less creative version of "Pump It Up" that it is.

George Michael - Faith: An example of the lame late 80s "sex=religion" craze (see also: Madonna's "Like A Prayer") that is tainted by the video's images of burning jukeboxes and George's ass. The song's opening organ fanfare (which I have excised on my compilation) seem to harold a truly holy musical experience, but the song is somewhat paradoxically a jaunty unpretentious ditty built upon a Bo Diddley beat.

Twisted Sister - We're Not Gonna Take It: Come now. It's a song for 10 year old metalheads with something to prove to their parents sung by 30 year old men wearing tight spandex and looking like Courtney Love on a bad day. The video is a live action version of a Wile E. Coyote cartoon, with the band going up against a one-dimensional evil father figure with as much subtlety as a crucifixion. Dee Snyder's voice is unnecessarily raspy for such an unchallenging and simplistic song, and the chorus is so basic and primal that it could have been written by a monkey with a typewriter. How could it not be totally awesome?

After all that, don't you feel like listening to some music you can enjoy without the guilty side effects. Well, look no further than today's cover, Anna Julia. This tune by Los Hermanos was popularized (somewhat) by Jim Capaldi's wonderful English-language rendition featuring George Harrison on slide guitar. After Jim's untimely death of stomach cancer a week or two back, I figured this would be a good time to cover this wonderfully melodic song. This rendition has got all the hallmarks of the original versions, with a little extra sloppy exhuberance. It kicks ass; you will agree.