My readers, how I have forsaken you. In my absence, the view count climbed, and there I was in the real world fucking up epically, more self-revelations each with less power than the last to prompt a change.
I applied to universities today.
28 Weeks to Freedom.
I wonder what my freedom is in the occasional fleeting visitations of reason – I swear to fucking god I’m losing it. I’m fighting a losing battle against society, and I’m going to fall Holden’s fall. It’s not even about the people around me anymore, I’m not sure if it’s around me. I’m not sure that the world we live in is able to sustain the everman’s growth anymore. I think the Wikipedia Generation has been stretched to its breaking point. Everything within arms length; I’m not sure I want what I wanted anymore.
Only from Frank Black’s snuff-film scary rants on everything do I find some morbid solace in the fact that a band like the Pixies were able to find amusement in the shit that we’re all disturbed by – they must have been some nasty-ass motherfuckers.
Seriously though, I’m just scared of the unknown right now – school’s just another fucking chore that occupies time and inhibits me from just finding something worth holding on to – a reference point if you will.
I’ll be doing a Pixies Wave of Mutilation review soon, as well as a Pixies overall critique – It’ll be fuckin A.
I’ve seen a sudden increase in the blog visits in light of the previous Essay on Masculinity post – I think my 12 readers like the Chuck P. narrative – anyways . . . I know I’ve been disregarding this blog for a while, but my reader(s) have taken second slot in light of university admissions, and scholarship shit. Hopefully in a couple of months, the haze will die down a bit.
I digress.
Let It Be Album Cover
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been listening to what I’ve been told is an Indie-Alternative Rock album which fucking defined the 80s. While art-popper REM was breaking out to the college masses; The Replacements were making some of the most influential alt-rock/pop of the 80s. Despite appearing on Saturday Night Live and later on, getting signed by a major music record label, The Replacements never caught on.
An Amazon Reviewer who happened to grow up in the 80s said that depending on which night you saw The Replacements, they were the best band or they were the worst band. Never did a band fall from grace as fast as The Replacements did when they broke up on the 4th of July, 1991 at a WXRT concert. He states,
If I remember correctly, after playing for about a half hour, members of the band started snapping at each other, and eventually Westerberg threw up his hands and stalked off the stage. And the Replacements were history.
Along with Husker Du, The Replacements defined the 80s Alt-scene – the influence of which spilled into succeeding generations – Colin Meloy of The Decemberists, REM, Actress Winona Ryder and countless other rockers and social personas have pinpointed that no band has captured the very essence of angst as Paul Westerberg did on Let It Be.
To get it straight, Paul Westerberg is a horrible singer the way Bob Dylan was a horrible singer. Their lyrics; timely instrumental additions made their music.
The album opens up with the track that best defines The Replacements: I Will Dare – the story of what seems to be a relationship-phobic kid that’s willing to take a chance if you’re willing to take one too.
I think Black Diamond is the weakest track on Let It Be – while managing to stay true to the original Paul Stanley, Kiss release, it doesn’t add much weight of its own.
Tales of sexual ambiguity in Androgynous; insecurities seemingly trivial and the sexual come with the delivery of a stand-up comedian in Gary’s Got a Boner and Tommy’s Getting His Tonsil’s Out! The latter of which was about late Tommy Stinson’s fear of the dentist. Unsatisfied – a moving relationship song on the album was what introduced me to The Replacements as I was watching Greg Mottola’s spectacular Adventureland.
– A Spectacular Performance of “Bastards of Young” off their album “Tim”. Bastards of Young was featured in Adventureland as well.
If you’ve ever liked a Green Day album or a Good Charlotte track or anything to do with the alt-rock scene, this is for you. This is your adolescece in 33 mintues, 51 seconds. Good old-fashioned college rock – cum teen-angst cum classic rock. Undefinable, eternal – if not in your collection, then through Simple Plan or Bowling for Soup or whatever mainstream garbage you listen to.
Megaupload Link! : http://www.megaupload.com/?d=EGH2UAVB – But I prefer you buy this one
There was Belle, I felt my saliva glands go into overdrive as she strutted across the hall, her jiggly hips sending thunder claps through the floor and into the bullshit that I was spitting at her.
“Yeah. Barning can’t fucking teach for peanuts.”
In a fit or wittiness, I reply, “You chuck peanuts, you get monkeys.”
I eye the corners of her lips as they trace a smile across her face.
And then comes the kicker that will have me embark on a quest that will revel in revalations.
My tongue drips in expired sugar, “So, have you seen Twilight New Moon yet?”
As I asked Belle that question, I was dragged a hundred miles away from the hall, there was Tyler Durden, Robert Paulson, and there I was in the corner. I was being given reprimanding looks by Senior Durden, and in my hand, he spilled his lye into the palms of my hands.
Back to the hallway with Belle; suddenly I want to yank the words that I had said a minute ago. Never should I have had to kneel down to the dogma of a woman in order to attain her favour.
Feminists: Misogynistic much?
Maybe.
Flash forward to the same night. I’m watching Fox’s How I Met Your Mother. A gossamer flap against the lobe of my ear. A roach. I slap it off my neck, take of my shirt to reveal the abs of a Abercrombie model. Too phobic to crush the twitching roach in paper, I drag my vacuum cleaner from miles across to suck in the motherfucker.
I am Robert Paulson bearing bitch tits. I am Jack’s absolute lack of testosterone. In post-millenium America, I am a man. In this era where men’s skinny jeans are acceptable, I am a man. The roach twitches in the garbage as I hesitantly run my hand through my head of hair. Motherfucker, I am not a man.
I am a unit of the single generation raised by women and corporate defined definitions of masculinity.
Day 2
I wake up, twitching like the roach I had killed, castrated from the discoveries of the previous day; I walk myself to One Choice Cut and think of the most masculine way I could wear my hair – I cut it all off.
Coincidentally; it’s the same day I’d scheduled to blaze [light up joints] with a few buddies at lunch break. Boys and girls alike at school recognize an abrupt difference that has come with the cut – I walk with the swagger of a made man, careful to never let my tone rise an octave higher than it should.
As I smoke, as my black friends spit stories of sexual escapades, I feel that hate for misogynism diminsh – if not partially, then absolutely. I feel no pity for the women that was fucked on Marlon’s carpet and was then discarded like pizza torn up by fungi.
If it was possible, I choked on the air in front of me as Senior Durden pitched a seal of approval by passing me the soap to neutralize the acid.
I choke, choke, choke, choke, cough, stutter, spit. As I’m subject to the looks of Marlon and Co. I walk out without any words, a changed man.
Conclusions:
I think that there’s a line that all men must find – a line between the pot smoking misogynist and the Abercrombie model – a line where I am woman’s equal. A path where I would never have to question my masculinity – where I could walk into a room and fucking ooze alpha-masculinity. The alpha-male opens doors for women out of respect and nothing more.
But! Was the Abercrombie dude a man? Sure he was. Chuck Palahniuk is openly gay. Surely, I wasn’t reading what he was pitching.
My point is to simply know where you stand in regard to your masculinity – dissect everything you thought you knew about what you think is masculine, and pick at what’s left. I assure you, you’ll find something worth treasuring.
If you guys enjoyed this post, google: Disneyfication of Manhood – a complex essay on similar themes.
And I have the potential to be an incredibly secure, adequate person.
Yesterday we had this event called ThinkFast in which half of our senior year graduating class stayed in this church auditorium from 9 AM to 10 PM. And the idea of the whole shenanigan was to fast for 14 hours with absolutely no food – in that auditorium.
A bunch of middle class kids that had never ever been hungry except for in the relative sense of the word – were essentially locked off from the outside world in an auditorium.
It was all good fun – pillow fights in which I got butt fucked; odd games and an exceptionally good drama – The Soloist which was sooo good.
But the part that I loved was the part in which I found the best of people in the most unexpected of them.
I mean, there were beautiful people in the very same people I had deemed ‘loud’ and ‘obnoxious’ and ‘overbearing’ in other encounters. Gah! The depths of humanity I was witness to yesterday made me tipsy.
And there was this single activity in which we had to write down what we thought of other people (first impressions) and vice versa. I ripped the paper of my back and there were four phrases in big green Sharpie.
Smart! (Big Smily Face)
Friendly
Professional
Nice Eyes
And after this, another girl that I know (who I think is one of the nicest people I’ve come across in recent years) took my paper and wrote a long paragraph on how awesome I am – Haha!
In school I always thought that I never got along with people; but I was just talking to the wrong people. That’s not to say that I’m immediately going to gain a large friend circle; but I have the potential to.
I think each and every one of you who was in that room yesterday has earned a special place in my heart – I know that sounds homo, but at this point, I really don’t give a damn.
The night is truly the darkest before the dawn – There are good days, and then, there are good days.
My grandfather always told me not to wear my heart on my sleeve, for friendships are fleeting and gossamer, delicate pretty little things like wax that run their courses. Hopefully, you find at least one friend that you are willing to die for, and you suck that udder for all it’s worth – this becomes marriage. The rest are all – simply wicks that must burn out.
I might be taking my borrowed candle analogy a little too long; but, whenever we try to mesh ourselves with one another, ergo to form friendships; we sacrifice a little ‘wax’ – a little chunk of ourselves we loan to each and every relationship like an investment. Sometimes, we get our wax back, and sometimes, we just get scarred.
Where is this coming from, you may ask?
The long gone crush of my past; the girl that stood for everything I had and couldn’t keep – the girl that epitomized my failures – that girl walked up to me today. My god, what an awesome strut that was – she was a girl when I left her, and now, I swear to god, she is a fully fleshed out woman.
She said “Hi” awkwardly, I returned the response with the same air in which it was delivered. She made sure I was okay, I did likewise. By then, we were both absolutely sure that our friendship had run its course, but this was a fleeting gesture of humanity. It was nice, it didn’t fucking make my day, but it was gorgeously humane of both of us. The depths of the human heart are infinitely undefinable. The awkwardness reminded me that it wasn’t just me that was scarred, it was the both of us. We were both wounded, because our wick burned out far too soon and our hands were dripping with wax that wasn’t our own.
I digress.
I started reading one of Scott Fitzgerald’s works called Tender is the Night. It drips upper class angst, and it’s pretty brilliant. Scottie has always been one of the more introspective writers I’ve read; I’m on page 7, I’ll write a proper review once I’m done. I’ve read both This Side of Paradise and The Great Gatsby – I loved both immensely. The Great Gatsby however, was grand – it’s like reading something that has no apparent flaws – and knowing that you’re feeling everything Scott wants you to feel. It plays you like an organ, and the prose is so, so stylish and quotable. This Side of Paradise was a coming-of-age story, which I could relate to; failed escapades in love, the incessant search for status and wealth, and it is overall a small character story which is why I liked it much more than the the theatric Gatsby. It’s about discovering oneself, and weeding out what’s stopping you from getting what you want, and what’s actually YOU, and not the shit you’ve learned through the influence of the countless people you’ve grazed. In the case of protagonist Amory Blaine – it was his selfishness which by the end of This Side of Paradise, he came to vindicate and accept; if not love!
Tomorrow I have an all-day event at the local Church, some school function. Seems like I can probably get a couple of kicks out of it! Ha-ha!
In all seriousness though, I think it’s going to be a great way to spend a Friday, and a great bonding experience with the rest of the graduating class. Hopefully.
I keep finding this handful of people that seem to care about me no matter how much of an idiot I make of myself – and mind you these are not my family, or the long due friends, and I find myself rather surprised by their behaviour,if not entertained! And overjoyed at the vast expanse of humanity I seem to keep stumbling upon lately.
Track of the Day!
Great Scottish Indie-Rock band named after a medieval sex toy . . . I present to you, Arab Strap!
They form this genre called Slowcore, Sadcore, but it’s all Undefined Indie to me. I haven’t heard that much of them, but they have a badarse finale album called The Last Romance which I’m going to review later this month.
Since Thursday morning, I’ve been sufferring from some viral ailment. Started off with the harbinger of doom: The Sore Throat. . . Here, in this global climate of flu pandemic paranoia, I give you the stages of the “Viral Ailment”!
Stage 1 – Denial!
Like any good American, at the onset of the grippy sore throat, I denied any trace of illness.
“What’s that? A sore throat you say?”
“Neigh! Neigh! ‘Tis a hairball!”
" 'Altering the Deal' for 1200, please?"
Stage 2 – Paranoia!
(Written in Second Person, but you fuckers know it’s me.)
You start to question if you got it from that kid who ran into class a couple of days ago to proclaim his forthcoming leave of absence in light of being successfully diagnosed with pneumonia.
You start avoiding the bird seed patch that you usually step on; in case there are any remnants of the Avian Influenza strain that started its process of infecting you a couple of weeks ago – Wait! It’s the fucking pork steak I had a couple of days ago!
I start Googling that shit. . . No, it’s not transferrable through cooked pork – but, ah! ‘Tis good to be on the watch for mutating viral ailments.
Maybe it’s that fucker who rubbed the remnants of his oatmeal breakfast on the bus “Stop” button that you had to press.
Gah! So many possibilites! So few diseases!
I actually start to narrow down the diseases via the Dr. House method. It’s either H1N1 from the pork (always chances!), the regular Influenza, the Avian Influenza, Pneumonia, or the Common Cold!
Google -> Wikipedia Treatment -> Viral Diseases
All the symptoms are fucking identical!
Stage 3: “Eye of the Tiger” Phase
Play on Survivah!!!
You start coughing, feel cold enough to think you’re having a fever, but nothing shows up on your thermometer. You’re tough as nails. You got a 90 in Ms. Mathias’s class. You’re going to pull this shit off!
The shortest of stages: I present to you the “Eye of the Tiger” Phase!
Clad with a 200mg big pack of Flu Tylenol, Advil, Shitty Cough Syrup and Vicodin for kicks -
Unrelated Painkiller Pile
You start going “YEAH! Imma Salt Water that shit!”
Imma let you finish! Imma let you finish! But the Spanish Flu was the best flu of all time mothafuckaz! *Pops ‘em painkillers good.*
Stage 4: Defeat.
You’re fucking defeated you miserable shit. Bus yourself to the doctor with a runny nose, and everyone giving you awkward looks. You pat your cell-phone holder threateningly – Scary old lady who sits opposite you on the Public Bus mistakes this for a sexual advance. On any other day, you’d tear her pussy up. But you want Tamiflu, and prescription painkillers strong enough to put an elephant to sleep. Your bones ache. You feel this impending doom at laying off your homework till the last minute – Ah! You get off the bus. Phat doctor gives you a face-mask that doesn’t fit you, you start drawing threatening looks from parents with vulnerable, sweet vulnerable little babies. It might be the flu, but there’s no fever. Wait till Monday, and then get Tamiflu – The Flu’s New wonder drug that unfortunately doesn’t do much than dent H1N1.
It’s Saturday night, you’re supposed to be out chilling at a friend’s place, he calls, you tell him that you’re at funeral. Then you cough the alveoli out your lungs. Nobody must know! I need my four hour shifts and I can’t afford to cut school!
Homework piles up, nothing tastes or feels good anymore – not even Johnny Cash. You sleep like a passed out drunkard, you wake up and you’re not the shit anymore. You iz a sad, undiagnosed kitty with no zeal for life.
You’re pretty sure atheism is the way to go by now, and you search for random funny videos all day long on youtube until you feel good enough to do homework.
Dear Mr. Toilet, I withdraw my post as “The Shit” until further notice.
In 2004, Canadian duo Win Butler and Regine Chassagne released a heartbreaking work of staggering genius that justified Canada’s position as an Indie Scene vanguard.
Crescendos within a crescendo; Butler wages war on the listener – a war that calls upon every listener to challenge and justify all the axioms you hold on to.
At first listen, the Funeral might seem to be a shallower work than acclaimed successor Neon Bible; but listen closely – the shards of humanity and blades of the human condition rip attempt to dissect the listener if he dares to play Funeral on repeat one time too many.
Unlike most albums, this is not one of those pieces where you can just upload and put it to shuffle – the entire listening experience would be lost on the seemingly scrambled, catchy, poppy listen. From Neighbourhood #1 to In the Backseat; given enough time, Funeral will ask more than you are willing to offer it. Dare you download?
By all means, do buy the CD or the Vinyl if the album does rattle your frame; the link is just a sample – or in case you don’t love it enough to buy it.
Theatrical indeed with clashing cymbals, and disheartened choir - carry or be carried? Suicide or euthanasia? Vanguard or backseat passenger – Romantic dilemmas beyond your or my boundaries of reason Funeral will prompt. Hate it or love it, you’ll fucking remember it – I guarantee it. This is catharsis at its best, this is some of the best goddamn literate pop I’ve listened to in years that actually made me think.
This is by no means a warm album – this is death and despair at its best (a tad bit of dramatic fantasy imagery too) – with undertones of exclamations of the human gift (or shortcoming?) to love and forgive simultaneously.
The following video is Arcade Fire performing Rebellion! Lies! on Letterman – one of the most powerful onstage performances I’ve ever seen – courtesy of YouTube.
Butler pulls of singing,
“People say that you’ll die
Faster than without water
But we know it’s just a lie”
With empty, glassy eyes that only an existentialist could have; and yet in the same track he goes on to sing “Here’s the sun it’s alright! Here’s the moon it’s alright!!!”
Another scribbled ballad on crushed notebook paper that I found. I probably wrote it when I was high, cuz I’m pretty sure I don’t remember writing it.
I am unoriginal, the sum of every experience, a sum total of all the things I’ve seen and all the people I’ve scorned. I am a bit of you, and a bit of everyone else we know. But – I’m afraid of you. You scare the living shit out of me every single day with your putrid smelling hair and your eyes which always say nothing at all just like the shit that you spew. You make me feel confident in myself which really is something I haven’t felt since I cut myself off the balcony of a thirteen story building because I felt invulnerable there, but when I’m next to you, I’m reminded of all that I could have been and I was nothing next to the walking, talking, pile of shit that you are. You have more shortcomings than a pregnant teenager from the ghetto who has an abusive alcoholic dad and a dead mom. In the darkness you cast, I see light in myself. You shout and preach in the name of god, and the friends you have all love you for the conviction you ooze; you have more conviction than a black woman scorned, you preach of a god that you haven’t seen and I know you don’t believe in. In the darkess you cast, I see light in myself, like a watchtower said the joker to the thief! Said the Joker to the Thief!!!!!”
Obvious reference to Bob Dylan there, pretty powerful shit considering I was fucking watching the Teletubbies while getting stoned on Northern Lights. I think I was referring to the girl I was talking about in Broken Heart Sophistry – an old post of mine. Ah – well, I have an essay to write. Toodles, bitchez.
I had “What’s My Age Again?” running through my head all day everyday when I was thirteen-ish.
I got through early high school listening to the likes of Blink 182 and Simple Plan’s Welcome to My Life (which was a brilliant song if you haven’t heard it!)
And though I can’t bear to listen to a whole pre-punk/alt-pop album now in one loop, it just brings back memories. It reminds me about how life is always dynamic, and nothing stays constant for too long.
Also, I feel this odd warmth, and gratitude for Blink 182, because without them I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have googled The Clash, and without The Clash, I’d actually have a functioning radio.
And rediscovering Blink 182 doesn’t feel as bad as I thought it would! Most tracks I’ve heard are about girlophobia, something I could really relate to in a different manner – in that I suck epically at relationships. And we have those songs about are just about how shit gets better – and about about 400 corny, beautiful tracks about the rush you get when you graze skin with someone who sets your heart on fire.
I came across this article as I was reading the New York Times (will link it at the end of the post), and it brought to light how domestic pets were being manipulated to save those “at risk to themselves”.
“I believe that so much research has come out lately suggesting that we may have underestimated certain aspects of the mental ability of dogs that even the most hardened cynic has to think twice before rejecting the possibilities,” said Stanley Coren, a psychology professor at the University of British Columbia
Dogs apparently have the enigmatic ability to actually foretell the onset of a seizure by about three minutes. . . Let that sink in – That’s some Benjamin Buttons shit right there.
How do they do it? They sniff that shit out.
Apparently they can even “sniff” out certain types of cancer – or they possibly tell by behavioural pattern shifts. These are two leading theories, none of it has been proved by research – yet.
I only summarized the postulates in the article that struck me, but go through the whole thing, it’s a brilliant read.
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