Archive for the ‘whatever’ Category
Saturday, June 7th, 2008
This gas thing is starting to freak me out a little bit. Its not that I really mind all that much paying 4.30 for gas but its the way that it has been presented us. It feels like only one in a combination of shades that have been systematically lifted off of the way we had been living for several years. Yes there was a war in Iraq but it never effected us adversely, unless you had a loved one over there, but for the most of us it never came that close to effecting us on any kind of personal level. But then the housing crisis came and the economy slowed down, and the government sent us $600 for free in the hopes that we wouldnt freak out when the gas prices hit 4 bucks and a lot of this was due to the amount of money that we have been ceaselessly pumping into the war. It seems like one thing after another after another is starting to go wrong or not wrong precisely but backwards. It isnt the end of the world but I am starting to see that at some point there will be one. Global warming and record amounts of tropical storms, hurricanes and floods. and on top of that we have to live with David Cook as our American Idol!!! Its all just starting to get to me i guess.-> The new Spiritualized album is pretty good, its a grower. The new Weezer album is very bad.-> I liked Indiana Jones 4 but Shia Lebouf was sort of a mistake and the scene where he swings on vines with a bunch of monkeys is perhaps the worst scene in the history of cinema.->Celtics in 6-> Im writing this on a Mac and for whatever reason it doesnt register when i make a new paragraph.-> I havent read a good book in a while any suggestions?-> and finally good work to the Democrats for finally getting their act together and picking a candidate however in my current state of mind I dont have very high hopes for November. I think America likes crazy people and John McCain might be the craziest. Imagine if he makes Mitt Romney his running mate? they would spend all of their time smiling insanely at each other reminiscing about what it was like when they both believed totally different things than they do now and comparing the taste of the Republican teet!
Posted in Books, Movies, Politics, Sports, music, whatever | No Comments »
Thursday, May 29th, 2008
I got a new job so my last day at Gartner is tomorrow. My ultimate goal is to make sure no one but my boss knows that I am leaving and slip away quietly avoiding all of the annoying goodbyes from people that i dont even like. I cant even begin to imagine what any of them would write in a card. “Tom good luck at your new job. May your evil looks stay deliciously evil and may your sighs and groans of anger and dismay forever ring within the halls of this corporate rat trap. Keep in touch.” Maybe i will tell people. that card sounds hilarious. I will now be a manager at the Yale Bookstore. They are going to start me off managing the cafe, which is cool because i like coffee more than is probably healthy. Hopefully if a job in the actual bookstore opens up i will be primed to swoop in and take it. I suppose this is not my ideal job. One of the things is have learned while on this frantic I-need-to-get-out-of-Gartner-as-soon-as-humanly-possible-before-I-throw-my-company-issued-computer-out-the-window job search, is that i dont think i have a realistic ideal job. My ideal job is floating somewhere in the imaginary matter of my brain and thats cool i guess. However i know that i can be happy back working for the Barnes. If B Dalton hadnt closed i would still working there. I enjoy the atmosphere of a bookstore, how bookstores look and smell. It will be nice to experience that everyday instead of what i go through now which makes me want to vomit. I have never been able to adjust to Gartners line of work and the lifestyle that it tended to breed in people. I suppose its a character flaw and i am sorry for that but i just could never adjust. But things just got a little better today. I will let everyone know on Monday if things perhaps will start to get a lot better.
Posted in whatever | 3 Comments »
Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008
I am reading the Dark Tower again. I found the first 4 books in their audio versions at the library last week and paid whopping $7 for them all, the library’s suggested donation price. I had been wanting to read them again but i didnt want to read them again. so this is nice, i get to experience them in a new medium.
Hillary won last night. I cared so little about the outcome that I actually only watched a few minutes of coverage last night. Hurray, the democratic primary has officially moved from curiously long into the regions of the grotesque. Congratulations you two.
i havent been thinking very blog worthy thoughts. Maybe they are live journal worthy but this isnt a live journal so im not going to expose any one who actually reads this to the inner works of myself. You should be glad for that because my inner workings are boring and silly.
Keep on Chooglin’
Posted in Books, Politics, whatever | No Comments »
Thursday, April 10th, 2008
I saw Tim Russert speak at SCSU last night. hes a good story teller and seems like a good guy. he likes Bruce Springsteen and was voted Dad of the Year by some publication. To steal a line from Seinfeld, “I dont know how official any of these rankings are.” Not his fault. hes a good speaker and i enjoyed the evening.
I am planning on suing American Idol to get the 2 hours of my life back that i wasted watching Idol Gives Back. The air was thick with self congratulations in the Kodak Theatre the night they filmed that train wreck. Let me ask you a question, on a show that is supposed to be promoting great singing, how do you let one of the worst singers in the history of pop music, Miley Cyrus, sing two songs when one of the best singers in the history of pop music, Annie Lennox only gets to sing one? Not only that but Miley Cyrus got to peel paint off walls TWICE and this years candidates for President of the United States got bumped due to time constraints. it nice to know AI’s priorities are in the right place.
Thank god for Annie Lennox, Bono and Forest Whitaker. The rest of the celebrities that lent their precious time to the cause should take lessons on how to not patronize the people they are exploiting for their own gain. And yes Alicia Keyes we should talk more about kids in Africa with Aids then we do celebrity drama but maybe, just maybe, when you are visiting these places, take off your designer clothes and your jewelry that is probably worth more than these people have ever considered earning in a lifetime. And thank you so much famous people for lending your time and your perfectly sculpted faces to the cause. Hey Reese Witherspoon, i think you make 20 million dollars per movie dont you? Well then maybe along with your time while your down there in New Orleans earning compassion points with people who might go see your next piece of s#!t movie you write that school a check for a million dollars or so. Why is it that the people that are most fortunate in the world are just content to lend their time. Kids with Aids in Africa dont want your freaking time, the need, need, NEED your cash and you have plenty of it. They need you to actually care as Bono and Annie Lennox and Forest Whitaker actually do. they dont need you flaunting your dangley 100,000 karat gold earrings in their faces while you wonder how they manage to live.
American Idol if you are going to make a spectacle of yourself in an effort to get my money youre going to have to do better than Billy Crystal and Robin Williams making fools of themselves, B list celebrities telling me to give them my money and Miley Cyrus’s unholy shriek. She is a banshee!!!
Also another tip to celebrities using poor people to try and get into heaven: all the sun glasses around the neck and tucked into the neck of your t-shirt look does for you is tell people that you dont really want to be there and you are going to run away screaming the first chance you get.
Posted in Politics, music, whatever | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, April 8th, 2008
My thoughts are all over the place today…
The new Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds record came out today. Its called Dig Lazarus Dig!!! Its not a concept record but several of the songs revolve around the premise of God raising Lazarus from the grave against his will, only to find himself a homeless junky tooling around the streets of New York City. It is amazing in every way.
There Will be Blood came out today on DVD. I find it highly amusing that this movie and the Nick Cave record came out on the same day. they are both superior works of art that try their hardest to be unlovable and difficult but are ultimately better for it. The whole point of the ending to There Will be Blood is that Daniel is finally satisfied and it is so perfect that it comes at the expense of leaving critics and the audience unsatisfied. Personally, I cannot wait to see it again.
Everyone called out today except for me and two other people and it feels like the end of the world. The phone will not stop ringing and nobody wants anything that i can actually give them. they all want some kind of magical special treatment that they dont deserve and are not entitled to and it is my great privilege to give them this news. I have been screamed at today, swore at, called useless and i might be mistaken but i pretty sure i was challenged to a fight. I would love to fight that guy today, its just too bad he is in another state. if he happens to read this i will be taking my break around 3, im in Connecticut, if you have the ability to get here by 3 i am going to rip your head off.
Mike and the mad Dog yesterday were debating whether or not Dick Vitale deserved to be in the Basketball Hall of Fame. They were both leaning towards answering the question No, but neither of them seemed willing to come out and say it. I will say that they are wrong. he totally deserves to be in the hall of fame soley because no one, NO ONE, loves basketball more than Dickie V and for that reason alone he should be in the hall of fame. He has been on Mike and Mike (the ESPN morning guys) every morning since Friday and he has ended every conversation in tears thanking everyone under the sun for giving him the opportunity to do what he does and for putting him in the hall of fame. Its all about the love of the game.
I think one thing the war has done for us is re-written the definition of the word ’success.’ before the word success meant ” the favorable or prosperous termination of attempts or endeavors.” our new definition probably reads something like this, “The semi-favorable but ultimately the same persistence down an inevitable road to failure.” I think its clear that our government has no real interest in stopping this war, pulling our troops out , or even acknowledging that the only way their surge can be deemed a success is that it put more of our soldiers in a position to die. So according to the new definition the surge/ war in iraq is a success. Hopefully, George, John, and their minions of death wont re-write the definition of victory to mean “The death toll in Iraq has reached 140,00 today.”
Posted in Movies, Politics, Sports, music, whatever | No Comments »
Monday, April 7th, 2008
Note - I have 770 AM on my radio for Imus. Occasionally i switch over during Mike and The Mad Dog commercial breaks to infuriate myself, which is my most favorite way to be.
People should have to pass some kind of standardized reasoning test before we let them vote. This is the reason that America is suffering because people like Rush Limbaugh belittle you into thinking that he doesnt like you and the only way you can get him to like you is to agree with him. But why would anyone care if a fat drug pusher like Rush Limbaugh likes them? Because of all the things that are ruining America the most contagious and dangerous is the people of this country’s over powering need for people to like them. people cant think or speak freely because they are afraid that someone might not like what they think and say, So they float through existence trying to destroy any hint of an opinion or abstract thought before it infiltrates their brains thus making them agreeable to all people and useless to me, and the rest of society that finds this quality in people repulsive, at the exact same time. to all the people who worry about people not liking them, guess what? I dont like you. Please feel free to email and attempt to win back my affection. Im sure my disgust with you will keep you up nights. Maybe you can use that time to think about your station in life and how you can improve it. The first way i would suggest: read a book. The second?
STOP LISTENING TO RUSH LIMBAUGH!!!
Posted in Politics, whatever | No Comments »
Monday, April 7th, 2008
Saturday was a good day.
I got up early like i always do. I got dressed, put on some jeans and a tshirt and scooped up our laundry to bring it down to the basement where our ‘laundry facilities’ are located. I wasnt expecting it to be so perfectly nice out, if i didnt say it out loud as i sometimes do when im alone, i definitely said to myself in my head, “Holy smokes, it is a nice day out today.” Not only was it nice, it was much too nice to be wearing jeans, so for the first time this year i put on some shorts, dug my trusty pair of sandals out of the wasteland that is the back seat of my car, im not sure why they were there, and went about my saturday morning ritual of cleaning my house.
I dont go crazy when i clean, i have a cat so vacuuming is very important. Along with that i like to clean out the sink, run the dishwasher, wipe down the counter tops, this makes me feel like a i work in a diner which is nice. I sometimes clean the toilet because even if you cant see it, the toilet is a dirty place. We rarely clean the shower, i think this might be a character flaw or a genetic defect. It just never occurs to me that this is something that really needs to be done although i can see everyday that it does. If this makes me a bad person then so be it. I aint cleanin’ no shower.
It was so nice on Saturday I opened a bunch of windows and let fresh air and street noise circulate through the apartment. My cat, Buddy, the ultimate cat, descended from a long line of jungle kings, enjoyed a few hours pining for the freedom of the outdoors laying in the open window sill.
Now, i finish vacuuming, so its time to get to work on putting the kitchen back together and for something like this, you have got to have some music but, what music to play, whats the perfect record to relax and enlighten and to heighten the experience of scraping old lasagna from a Pyrex pan and scrubbing questionable stains and materials off my kitchen counter? Some people think the key to good weekend light manual labor background music is to find something nice and light, something you dont have to pay attention to too much. It literally sits in the background so at some point while youre doing whatever it is youre doing you will forget that the music is on. It will become part of the background noise and will take its place with the sound of the water running, the traffic outside and, if you live in an apartment, the sounds of your neighbors letting their red headed 6 year old systematically destroy their house one mysterious “just fell of the bunk beds” THUD at a time. I am of a different school of thought when choosing tunes for this very tricky time of the day. I prefer something really weird, something that i wouldnt normally listen to if i had to pay full attention to it. My normal selection for a nice day house cleaning session would be from my pals The Penguin Cafe Orchestra. they are by far my favorite psychedelic, new age, ambient island lounge folk band and their first three records are very charming indeed. However on this particular Saturday i was in the mood for something a little different so i sifted through my vinyl collection and finally decided on David Byrne’s ‘The Knee Plays.’ This fit the bill perfectly. Its weird, the whole record is full of marches comprised of synth horns and there’s is no singing just David Byrne spoken word. Awesome. It was laid back and just the perfect piece of music to keep me interested even when i was realy paying attention and it never once configured it’s sounds to the general cacophony of life.
Then…band practice. Oh glorious band practice. Our practice space is in West Haven. It is located inconveniently in the back of a warehouse in a cinder block room we rent from a guy that rents it from someone else. it was so nice out we propped the door open, had a few beers, and played music for 4 hours. Thats what i call relaxing friends.
Later that night Nicolette and I watched Frasier for a while, ate some food, flipped back and forth between baseball games and the Final Four. After, she studied and i continued reading The Iceman Cometh. I went to bed around 11 i think, early maybe but sometimes friends, its just time to go to bed.
Posted in Sports, music, whatever | 2 Comments »
Thursday, April 3rd, 2008
Oh Lord, yesterday was just one of those days my friends. My Wednesday ended up being saved by a wicked band practice and copious amounts of Regular Coors (the Banquet Beer and by copious I mean 3 or 4) but it was close man, it was real close. I almost lost it there for a while. The work just kept piling up and my boss told me that Friday we have to dress business casual because his boss is coming in ( as an example of why this is such a problem for me today i am wearing a Mets tshirt, jeans and my red torn up converse. I usually wear something similar everyday). The morons that inhabit the cubes around me would not stop talking about their kids and their diseases and their vacations and what they had for breakfast and what they were going to have for dinner and i didnt get to eat any lunch because i had to pick up a bag that i thought would fit my bands keyboard on my lunch break and the key board ended up not fitting in the bag and i was late getting back from lunch because people dont know how to drive any more and i got stuck behind a school bus and car drives funny, it makes funny noises and it feels like it is being ripped apart in a nuclear explosion when i hit pot holes, etc. etc. insert your own daily horror stories here…
I needed an outlet as i do four out of five business days. I needed a friend and a confidant and someone that would not only understand what i was going through but would stand up for my rights as some one who wants to jump out the window because the bottom rung of society will not stop laughing its hideous maniacal laugh in regards to something that isnt funny. Let me ask you a question, how long should a debate about how much you would be willing to pay for a double disc edition of Aeon Flux staring Charlize Theron last? The answer is not an hour which is how long that exact conversation lasted over my head between the person that sits opposite me and their boy friend.
I needed to commune with a person or rather a being who could commiserate with my misery. So i reached into my pocket pulled out my ipod and found the person who is always there for me…Bill Hicks. I loaded up Rant in E-Minor and set my soul to relax.
I was really mad though people and i needed something else besides Mr. Hicks. I needed an extra jolt of fury in my putrid office kitchen coffee-ish sludge. So, went through the entire Bill Hicks catalog made a mix of favorites and then made of mix of some appropriatly chaotic and angry and sometimes but not always loud music. I finished my mix around 5pm. My shift ended at 6 so i spent the rest of the afternoon floating down the soothing river and mutual angst and cultural indigestion.
The music mix looks like this:
The Fox - Sleater Kinney
New Wave - Against Me!
If White America Told the Truth for One Day Its World Would Fall Apart - Manic Street Preachers
Careening With Conviction - Mission of Burma
World Wide Suicide - Pearl Jam
Waiting Room - Fugazi
Working Class Hero - John Lennon
Voodoo Chile (Slight Return) - Jimi Hendrix
I think everyone probably has a ‘One of those days’ mix.
Posted in music, whatever | No Comments »
Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008
Ugh.
I have spent the last two days writing lyrics. Of writing lyrics i am not a fan although i have done a lot of it over the last two years or so. They just always seem really goofy to me and i can only get used to singing my own words after the song is a few years old, that way it doesnt seem like my song, hopefully it has been played so much that it feels like we’re playing a cover and not something that I slaved over. Which is how i approach my lyric writing.
There is no rhyme or reason to how i write lyrics. i come up with a melody first and there are usually a few lyrics naturally embedded in the melody. if they make sense i use them in the song and write around them, if they dont i try to come up with something that sounds very similar. My lyrics seem to always be about myself although in a more surreal context. Another way i write lyrics is to sift through these manila folders i have that are filled with scraps of paper with novel, short story and lyric fragments on them and try to adapt something that was previously written to the structure of the song. I was sorry to learn yesterday that i have almost exhausted this lyric writing ‘crutch’ i have and any songs i write from now on are going to have to have totally fresh shiny new lyrics.
Which really sucks.
Posted in music, whatever | No Comments »
